


Sword Strike Online

by Zavros_Hellstrand



Category: Highschool DxD, Sword Art Online
Genre: Blood and Violence, Demons, Dragons, Gen, Magic, Overpowered Oc, Slow to Update sometimes, Swearing (Obviously), stupid title
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:45:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zavros_Hellstrand/pseuds/Zavros_Hellstrand
Summary: VR is a commonplace thing now, and new games are coming out seemingly every day until a company called Undead Assembly comes out with the Alucset and the game Sword Strike Online. The day that it is put in the hands of a hundred thousand players is the day it all changes. The game is no longer a game, and the only one who can save them is Zavros Hellstrand, Demon, and future most powerful being in the world.The SAO part is simply the premise of trapped in a game, and the only way to get out is to beat all the floors.The Highschool DxD part is because I wanted to have some variety to the characters beyond the obvious Hero, Hero's best friend, and Hero's love interest. I chose Vali for a battle maniac who could be helpful due to the overpowered-ness of Divine Dividing. (I mean seriously 40 seconds, and he can take someone to 6.25% of their original power level) I chose Ophis because I wanted a character that could serve the purpose of bringing Vali and (Briefly) Issei into my universe of fuckery and one other reason which won't be revealed yet.





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, well, this may or may not be good. But I will give it a good try. I have written things before, so this won't be total crap, but my writing style is different than others so if it's not your cup o' tea I won't blame you. 
> 
> I may alter chapters at random if I get a good idea or I make some grave writing mistake at some point. I will accept and practically expect criticism. I, however, will not allow criticism that is not well founded. If you only say that my story sucks, please explain why because then I'd love to hear it. But a simple statement doesn't do me any good.
> 
> Also, if you ever spot a sentence or even a word that doesn't make sense, it's probably because I have rewritten the first couple chapters so many times and I simply don't have the time due to school to examine every word against each other to make sure it all fits. I will do my best though.

So, you'd like to hear a story eh? One where the fate of the world hangs in the balance? If not, too bad, I'm telling you anyway. Our story begins with a boy named Zavros Hellstrand.

Now Zavros Hellstrand was an ordinary boy, or so it seemed to the outside world. As far as anyone was concerned, Zavros had lived a complete life on earth, but this was not the truth. The truth was that Zavros had never lived one entire day on earth. He was, in fact, a 4000-year-old demon from the depths of Hell, and he was on earth now because as an enforcer of Hell he was tasked with fixing things that defied what was expected. In this case, it was the video game Sword Strike Online. You may ask what could be about this video game that would cause Hell to dispatch an enforcer to deal with it. It was an ordinary fantasy video game, one that had been done a thousand times before and one you might think would be swept under the rug quite quickly. This was not the case, however, and the concept was deceptively simple, you put on a VR Headset, and you are transported into the video game, leaving your body behind in a sort of sleep mode. This was quickly discovered not to be the case. The bodies of the players disappeared when you entered the game, and no one could figure out where they went. Now, this, of course, didn't escape the notice of the higher-ups in Hell for long except for one thing. Hell has a notoriously slow committee process that people sometimes compare to the American Congress on Earth, so Hell took quite a long time to dispatch Zavros to go into the game and get everyone out in one way or another. Part of why they took so long to decide is because Zavros is one of the newest members of the enforcers and quite young in comparison to other demons. Why send the 4000-year-old recruit when they could send the 20,000-year-old veteran to solve this matter. Questions like this plagued the committee for extended weeks before they finally decided to send Zavros in.

Zavros' POV  
I walked into my room where the Headset was already set up and waiting for me. I only had one goal in the game, and that is to find a way to get everyone else out. I was only told to keep myself incognito and not display my true power except when absolutely necessary or when out of the eyes of the game master, who would undoubtedly be in the game. I started by double and triple checking the equipment before laying down on my assigned bed and putting the headset on. It only took a few seconds for the headset to kick on and begin its start-up procedure. It started with an adjustment to my head accompanied by a whirring sound and a screen coming down to protect my face supposedly. I was then knocked out by the headset and woke up in a room with a floating keyboard. I tried to get up but found that my head hurt massively and laid back down to wait for it to pass. It started to pass within minutes, and I stood up to check if I still had all my gear. I still had my sword, my armor, and my magic, so I started off making myself incognito and cast a simple transmutation spell on my armor to turn it into leather armor and a purple cloak. I sealed away my magic so that my aura couldn't be detected. 

I then approached the keyboard, and it asked for my name and gender. I smirked at this and filled in Zavros Hellstrand; Male. Once I had finished, a platform rose from the floor and asked me to step onto it. I approached it swiftly and stood on it and waited for something to happen. I watched as a spherical drone approached me and started scanning my body before it went off. I found this entire experience quite amusing, and I watched as a screen lit up and informed me that it recognized me as a beta tester and if I wished to continue using my current gear which was identical to what I was already wearing.  
I had never entered the beta test, and I naturally assumed that the committee had interfered to allow me an advantage and cut down on time I would be inside the game. I accepted this, and the platform began glowing before transporting me away with one final message.

"Welcome To Sword Strike Online"

I appeared in a large city plaza where I could see thousands of players around me, and they began to funnel over to me in curiosity because it had been weeks since the game had launched and they didn’t think it sane for a person to log in to the game if they knew anything about the game. I was approached by a man and woman both of which looked like they knew what they were doing. The man was garbed in what seemed like a holy set of Archdemon’s armor( See Media1) without the helmet. The girl was garbed in a robe, but I could tell she had armor on underneath it. He approached me with interest and asked what I was doing here. I answered according to my orders from the committee and said that I was sent to help you beat the game. They continued on with their questioning, but they got no more answers that weren't that it was classified or that I couldn’t tell them. They were very unsatisfied with the complete lack of answers they got and were about to walk away completely dismissing me when I thought of something. I decided to make a deal with them, I would prove my value to them, and in exchange, they would answer all my questions about the game. They seemed curious about how exactly I would prove my worth to them so they simply looked at me, crossed their arms and raised an eyebrow in anticipation for how I would prove my worth. 

I thought about it and decided that I would ask their positions in the game, and if they were high enough up I would offer a dual and if I won, they would answer my questions, and if I lost, I would answer their questions about me. 

They said that they were the leader and 2nd in command of the main army in the world of Al Cazore. I presented my deal, and they seemed almost incredulous at the notion that I believed I could beat them in a duel and thus accepted my challenge immediately and declared that we would fight at noon tomorrow at the arena in the center of town. They then walked off and seeing as I had no other options, I decided to try to charm a crowd member into telling me where the nearest inn was. It turns out I didn’t need to charm them, they readily told me where it was, and while this was strange, I didn’t question it as I walked towards this inn I was told was near here. I took a room and went into my room, finding it suitable I sat in a chair and began thinking about what my plan was for helping these people but soon found that topic of thought exhausting and walked over to the bed for some sleep. I woke up not long after and quickly figured out that without self-influence, everyone woke up at the same exact time. I walked outside of the inn and simply joined the masses and began walking towards where I think the arena is and passed by many houses and shops before coming in front of what I presumed to be the arena we would be fighting in. I walked in and found a receptionist, I think. I told them that I was supposed to come here before noon for the battle I was in. They pointed at a door without even looking up at me before continuing on with their work. I walked through the door and found myself in a small room with a magic symbol in the center, I assumed that I was supposed to stand on this magic circle and I was instantly transported to the heart of the arena. I looked around and saw that there wasn’t one empty seat in here, and then I looked to my opponent to find him roughly ten paces from me with his partner alongside him. I stood perfectly still with my arms behind my back and just casually observed my opponents. The male opponent’s armor was uncomfortable for him, and his sword was an unfamiliar weight at his side. He clearly had yet to get used to his gear, but he probably knew how to use his sword. The female was a bit more deceptive, but that can be attributed to her robes which hide much. I could, however, discern that she stood with much more ease and grace than her partner, but she was also wearing much lighter equipment. The final 10 seconds of the countdown before the duel began were being counted down by an unknown speaker.  
10  
They hardened their stance, and they rose their weapons, a sword for him and a staff for her.  
9  
We looked at each other and scanned each other for weaknesses.  
8  
He locked himself in a stance that screamed his intention to charge at me and remained so for several seconds.  
7  
6  
5  
4  
On the 3rd second, He then relaxed his stance as he realized I didn't move one inch from my original position and I was standing with the eerie stillness that only an immortal could achieve.  
2  
1  
And the duel began, and he emitted his aura, and while it was admirable for a human, it was still like observing an ant from a mountain. It was quite small and weak to an immortal such as I in comparison to the auras I've felt in the depths of hell. His partner started to step forward, but he held out an arm, holding her back, as he then began to speak with me.

"You are unarmed" he observed.

"I shall take your weapons once you are through with them."  
I then observed his arm waver for a second as his aura change as he more thoroughly observed what I had said and done and in the end, he realized that they were utterly and hopelessly outclassed by me. They did however not surrender, they decided to fight and see just how outclassed they were.

He started by approaching me and take a swing at me. It was slow and clumsy and left enough openings in his defenses that I could've paralyzed him from the neck down before he could've finished his swing, but I decided to let him tire himself out before striking. He then proceeded to swing at me for the next 3 minutes while his partner watched me for weaknesses. I quickly and with minimal effort dodged every single one of his swings. He then retreated and called in his ally to attack me. She leapt up into the air and formed a giant hammer made of light before swinging it down onto me.I easily reached up and caught the hammer as if it were light as air and tore it from her grip. I did, however, misjudge my strength, and she went flying down to the ground and landed quite hard next to her partner. I held the hammer in my hands and looked at it before then crushing it in my hands stating "Quite uncivilized" I then walked up to them and said that they were outclassed and they knew it, so I recommended that they simply resign from the duel. They backed away and readied themselves for another strike at me. I decided that I was tired of this fight and I flared about 5% of my aura at them to knock them to their knees. I said that I would ask just one more time if they would like to resign. They accepted, and I reined my aura back in and told them to meet me at my room at the Inn, and we would talk.

I turned away from them and looked upon the crowd to gauge their reaction to how effortlessly I had defeated them. Their reaction was typical, they looked at me in stunned silence, and then they simply got up and walked out of the arena, and I expected some to have remained at the arena’s entrance to ask questions, but most would simply go home.

I waited until the arena had emptied of everyone before beginning to walk out. However, as I was walking I instinctively knew that an attack was coming from behind and above, and I simply turned around and quickly checking if my opponents had left the arena and seeing that they had I erected a shield around myself whilst crossing my arms behind my back. I watched as a series of daggers bounced off my shield before disappearing as soon as they had appeared. A tall figure then dropped down from the top of the arena and landed in front of me. They were garbed in a black cloak and black armor much reminiscent of an assassin's garb, skintight yet very protective. I had no idea what it was made of, but I knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t something easily broken. I watched as the figure stood up and looked at me. I couldn’t see their face, but I knew that it would be very calm and collected. I observed from their stance and their armor that they were female, but I knew that this didn’t mean they were any less dangerous. I simply waited for them to make the first move. They drew a sword and waited for me to do the same. From this observation, I saw that who ever this was they were, despite the dagger attack, an honorable character and I decided to show them the same honor they showed me and dissolved my shield and summoned my sword from my pocket dimension. I placed it at my side and drew it in one fluid motion. I watched as they began to walk towards me with their sword lowered yet still in a position to defend from any attack, a smart tactic that only an expert of bladework would be able to properly use. However they stopped about 5 feet from me and then flipped their blade vertical before planting it in the ground, and I copied their action because this was an unspoken agreement between warriors that they were to talk first. I decided that in the interest of diplomacy I would leave my arms at my sides instead of behind my back. They began thus: 

“That was an impressive maneuver there to block my daggers, not many would be able to do that, not the speed of which you put it up, but that it could so effortlessly block my daggers, as they are imbued with the concept of Tangibility in order for them to pass through any armor.”

I responded with, “It doesn’t matter what they are imbued with, because of what my barrier is imbued with. Mine is imbued with the concept of Justice, and it judges the intentions of the attacker, and if they mean harm to the caster, no attack is able to penetrate it unless the attack is imbued with a concept that either overpowers Justice or can convince it that the attack doesn’t mean harm.”

The figure gives a short and humorless laugh at my explanation before responding that such a barrier seems like cheating. I just smile and acknowledge that I know it’s kinda like cheating and so I don’t use it unless I am being attacked by someone trying to catch me off guard, if the opponent is cheating themselves or to protect an innocent. 

They seem to be slightly caught off guard by this before regaining their composure and asking who I am.

“You are exceptionally calm about this, and in my experience, the only people who act like that before a potential battle are those who can judge a person’s skill from a single look and are so sure of their abilities that they feel no need to regard their opponent as a threat. Those types are only one of two types of people whom true warriors fear, the other is those who have nothing to lose, and they have been the downfall of more people than necessary. So my question to you is, who are you?”

“I am Zavros Hellstrand.” 

“Just Zavros Hellstrand, no fancy titles to be waving around, no o-so-impressive feats that I should be fearing? Because you would be the first to have the power you apparently possess and not brag about your accomplishments.”

“I have fancy titles and impressive feats, I just choose not to use them to influence someone’s opinion of me.” “So, I am just Zavros Hellstrand.”

At that time they placed their hand on their sword and picked it up and then in a surprising twist to only the reader; sheathed it before addressing me again. “You are an impressive man, and so I will choose to not try and stop you in any way, and if you ever wish to employ my services, I have no doubt that you will find me in some way or another.” They then threw down a small flat object and were transported away. I retrieved my sword and sent it away again before turning away and walking out of the arena. 

I found a small crowd of people outside the arena waiting for me, and I stopped in front of them and waited for the questions that would naturally be asked of me. They followed the lines of who I was, how powerful I am and why I joined the game so late. I gave short and concise answers that didn’t reveal much.  
“Zavros Hellstrand, Quite, and no particular reason.” The crowd then realizing that they would accomplish nothing by asking me questions and they simply parted as I walked past and then went to wherever it is they have to go. 

I quickly arrived back at the Inn I was staying at to find my two opponents already waiting for me. I brought them to my room, sat them down in some chairs and then silently cast an enchantment on the room to prevent eavesdropping. I started my questioning and found out that the male was Alxerczo God-Sword and the female was Tatsu Queen. Alxerczo is technically a spellsword but to prevent confusion, he calls himself a paladin. Tatsu was simply a magician. I then asked them what had happened in the game so far. Tatsu began.

Tatsu POV:

In the beginning, when I loaded into the world I started looking around the plaza seeing tens of thousands of players logging in, and I, As many others noticed how crowded it was becoming even with others starting to wander off a bit into the city I walked around. I didn’t stay long because, as a veteran of these types of games I knew that the training fields would quickly begin to be flooded with players getting their first kills. I ran outside the city swiftly evading other players along the way to start my training. I began to check for enemies and suspiciously saw none. I kept a watchful eye out and kept looking. I looked up to scan the horizon and saw that there was another player with the same idea as me, but I jumped when I saw him.

I jumped because it startled me that he was here and it scared me. This I would attribute to the fact that as he went around killing enemies, they went so fast and killed so thoroughly that they were overloading the games respawn system with the amount of death it had to deal with. They were armored in all black with a hood over its head, a mask over its face, and a cloak. All with a black sword to complete the set. I dared not interfere for fear they would kill me, so I stayed back watching carefully but quickly became too nervous retreated into the city to tell of this mysterious warrior…

Alxerczo then began to tell the story...

Alxerczo’s POV

I happened to be among the crowd admiring the work of The Walking Shadow; I had heard someone name him. I looked around to see that the person to my side was too scared. I pulled them back curiously to ask about why. I turned to the female, and she responded with, “I was going out to train and get some early kills when I saw a warrior armored in all black with a hood, a mask, and a black sword. He scared me at how efficient they were”

With that sorted out, we began to walk back to the crowd. About halfway there we stopped as I had noticed that we were all surrounded by rings of energy. The rings expanded up and down covering our entire body, and when they dissipated we were teleported to a large arena where we were all sat in seats, it reminded me of the Coliseum in a way, the sky turned black displaying a message in white.

It showed the message “Game Admin Incoming” quite ominously. I looked away to check the surroundings and noticed the girl was next to me, The Girl had calmed down but was still fearful of what was to happen. The sky then turned blood red, and a part of the heavens opened up, and a several thousand foot tall figure dropped down from it and landed making a crater on the ground. When the dust cleared, he was draped in a dark red cloak over a suit of black armor. 

The figure then began to speak, his voice amplified by some magic that made his voice resonate across the whole arena. He spoke with a confident voice that one with a less experienced ear would think he was talking down to us, but I knew better. He was just confident and almost excited for what he had to say. I could sense that most players had mixed feelings towards this mysterious “Game Admin.” They weren't sure whether to be excited or cautious. I, however, held no mixed feelings, I knew this wasn’t going to be good for anyone. His speech began with a simple welcome, after which he said the single sentence that shocked a majority of the arena.

“I hope you have an enjoyable time here in Sword Strike because you will be stuck here for a very extended period of time of time. You will not and can not log out of the game, any attempt to try will result in your death, both in here and in the real world,” ”You may think someone else will simply pull the AlucSet off your head, and you will be free. This is not the case, as you will see from this.” He held up his left hand, and a monitor appeared showing the news.” The headline read “1,524 confirmed deaths due to AlucSet.” The reporter was saying that all these deaths came from people taking off the AlucSet. He turned off the monitor and looked around the arena to gauge the reaction of the arena. I stood up and went towards the figure, at first the crowd, and the figure was surprised and confused at my bravery, I did so because despite not knowing who I was going up against, I had to do this for the good of the people. I began to speak as loud and authoritatively as I could and found that I was speaking at the same volume as the mysterious figure. “Well, I may not know who you truly are, but I hope you know what the consequences will be for your actions here.”  
“I am Genysis, the one who created this game and I know full well what I am doing; I am creating a world for all of you, a world that will be your home until you can defeat all 1000 levels of the dungeon beneath your feet.” Genysis then moved to the emperor's seat where he opened another monitor above the arena only much much bigger. 

A majority of us recognized it for what it was, a giant map of the game world. The map then went to an underground projection mode where it showed that underneath our very feet, was the dungeon, it spread out like a web across half the world, but not only that, it went down for tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of miles down into the world, and smack dab at the very bottom was level 1000.

I returned to my seat and waited for something else to happen. Needless to say, I didn’t have to wait long. The figure returned to the skies and turned it back to blue. The arena erupted in chaos accompanied by a great cacophony of sound from the players trying to exit the game desperately.  
I watched as one by one; they realized that what he said was true. We were indeed stuck here.

After it had calmed down, I got back up and walked to the center of the stadium. While I was quite small in comparison to the arena, I found that because I had stood up to Genysis, I held an authority with the people. I arrived at the center of the stadium and waited until it was dead silent before I addressed them again. I spoke to them simply, and quickly, I instructed them to mentally separate themselves into one of two groups, fighters, and crafters. I asked the crafters to go back to the town, set up shop and prepare for when the soldiers come back. But before I sent them back I asked if anyone had a question. Almost every hand went up, and I began the process of answering as truthfully as I could. I remember some being about if it was even possible to beat the game, I said that I didn’t know, but we won’t know if we don’t try, so on and so on. After that, I sent the crafters home and instructed the fighters to come as close as possible so they could hear me. I after that asked everyone who was a beta tester to come forward as they would be the commanders of the Legions. I then walked back to my seat and asked my friend to step forward as well.

It took a bit of time for everyone to confirm they were a beta tester and assign them based on experience. While this was all happening, I instructed all the other players to take the person to look around and whoever you made eye contact with first would be their new partner. Then line up with their new partner and wait for further instructions. There were 100 beta testers in total, and I organized them into legions then assigned everyone a position in the command structure of their new army and take all protests to me. By the end of it, I counted 15 legions(5000 people each) and assigned each with a temporary post. I sent 5 legions to position themselves around the town for defense, I kept 5 for dungeon raiding, and I sent the other 5 to assist the crafters with setting up their shops. I sent my 5 legions off to search for the entrance to the dungeon. I then turned to my friend and started walking towards her to ask her name and class.

Tatsu’s POV  
I marveled at his leadership ability and wondered what he did before SSO that made him so good at leading and organizing soldiers. I startled myself with my wording as I realized what I had said. We were soldiers now, and our only goal was to beat this game, and we had to follow orders to do that. I saw the Legions break and march towards their new positions and once again took a mental step back at how organized they were as if they had been trained as an army for years. I watched as he began to walk up to us and waited for what he had to say.

 

Alxerczo’s POV  
I reached her and learned that her name was Tatsu Queen and she was a magician, I introduced myself as Alxerczo God-Sword, a Paladin. I used light magic to heal my allies and to punish enemies. I lead her down and into the town as a party to check on the crafters. We went door to door checking on people, sorting disputes as we went.

 

Zavros’ POV  
“And after doing that for weeks, we eventually came upon you and the rest you already know.”  
I had listened intently to what they had said, and when they had finished, I leaned back and thought about what they had said. I knew that Genysis is most likely the one responsible for placing all these people in the game and I would eventually have to face him to free everyone. But before I could think any longer I was pulled out of my thoughts by a device on Alxerczo’s arm lighting up and beeping. Alxerczo tapped on it and asked whoever was on the other side what they needed. They responded that they had found the boss room of the first level. Alxerczo and Tatsu immediately looked up and high-fived each other, I believe the humans call it. Alxerczo then responds that they would be there soon. They quickly stood up and began to leave before he turned around and looked back at me. I was laying back on my bed, and he then asked if I wished to come with to help with the boss. I, having nothing better to be doing and curious to see what capabilities these two had when not facing someone on the same power level as me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's chapter 1. I have seven chapters in total, except only about 1.5 of them have been adequately looked over for consistency with all the changes I have made since they were first written.
> 
> Expect at best 1 update every week and at worst, one a month. If I go longer than that, you readers have full permission to come to my house and beat the crap out of me until I publish a new chapter. I will try to alert my readers if something drastic happens like death. I'm pretty sure death would qualify as a drastic circumstance.


	2. Level 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back bitches! Welcome to chapter 2 of SSO. I hope you enjoy and let us all enjoy Zavros kicking ass.

Zavros’ POV  
The trip to the dungeon was agonizingly slow due to the fact that I was magnitudes faster than them and so I had to occupy my mind with something as we went along. I settled with how to train the vast army they had into something resembling a decent fighting force. Due to the speed at which my mind works i had adjusted my personal training regimen to not overwhelm a human’s vascular and respiratory systems. The calculations took long enough that we quickly arrived at the entrance with the help of their map and tracking skill. Upon arriving at what, to a human mind, could be described as a royal castle that while in a vast state of disrepair was still impressive and they marveled at the beauty of the castle for a moment before following me inside. A few feet inside we found a few soldiers milling about in a state of fear and exhaustion. I mentally hung my head in shame at how pathetic their physical states were in, and I consulted with Alxerczo for permission to train the soldiers. He accepted once he saw how ill disciplined they were. I then told him about an idea to help them later in the dungeon as I was training the soldiers out here. I informed him that I would give him a temporary aura clone of sorts. I would separate 10% of my power and form a corporeal being that would follow them while they rounded up the rest of the people in the dungeon and eventually reach the boss room. Alxerczo nodded and told me to leave the commanders to him. I had a pretty good idea why he asked that of me, and I respected him for it. I made the aura clone, and from his look, I knew that he would have some strong words to say to his commanders when he got back.

I watched as they descended into the dungeon and I figured that it would take them a couple of hours to go through the dungeon’s crooks and crannies to find and direct all the soldiers outwards. I figured that I wouldn’t let this time go to waste and I could practice some combat while I wait, so, I secretly created another aura clone that was just strong enough to spar with, but not strong enough to defy me. I trained for hours, but due to my demonic nature, i didn’t even break a sweat. This freed my mind to wander and pay attention to my surroundings, and I was observing the entrance carefully. Every so often a group of people would emerge and sit down on the ground in exhaustion. I made several mental notes and made some remarks about the physical state of the people that i’m sure Alxerczo would share. After watching them for a short period of time to find the ranking officers in the crowd of people, I started them on an exercise regimen with the commanders and seconds in command watching over them with me above them in command. The soldiers, to say the least, were not happy and began reluctantly but gave it some enthusiasm when they realized why I was doing this. I waited until every soldier was doing the exercises before I uttered an invisible shield spell over the entire area to keep them from sneaking off before descending into the dungeon in search of my friends. 

I tracked my group with a very discreet spell and found them standing in front of an absolutely immense door waiting for something, assumedly me, by the way, they got up and prepared as I approached. I began to fill them in on what was happening above, and Alxerczo gave me some praise for my ideas on the exercises. I then absorbed my two aura clones and we then walked to the door and were met by the boss. I hadn’t heard about the bosses in this game, but I wasn’t expecting what I saw. I looked him over, and he was about 7’ tall, wearing black armor with glowing red highlights, wielding a black sword with a barbed blade that was clearly designed for maximum damage. He was just a very hellish looking boss. The name over his head informed us that this was the Daedric Lord known as Blacklure The Damned. We all drew our weapons in anticipation, and I asked if either one had some information to share or suggestions to make. Both of them shrugged, and we just walked towards him to begin the fight. 

We walked towards the boss, and he immediately engaged us with what seemed to be a slow set of attacks to test our abilities, but that notion was quickly eliminated when I looked back to see both Alxerczo and Tatsu still standing still and entirely unaware of the attack. I, in the remaining time I had left before they would react, transferred energy to my sword arm and the sword itself and in one strong swing shattered his blade and kicking him back in one fluid motion. In the second that followed, I made preparations for his second attack because I knew that he would try again, so I planted my sword in the ground to create a mirror barrier and some runes to allow it to remain for an infinite time. Now, one of the only good things about this game is that it artificially enhances human perception, so both Alxerczo and Tatsu saw me do this, which was, looking back, not my smartest move, but luckily they didn’t think too much of it due to the realization that they probably almost lost their lives to the boss. They looked at me and the barrier, and we then watched as he swung his sword against the barrier repeatedly, seemingly following the principle of try, try again. Once I was confident that it wouldn’t break I turned to Alxerczo and Tatsu for their inevitable questions.

Alxerczo’s POV  
Tatsu and I watched the scene devolve into chaos faster than we could perceive and we were just stood there dumbstruck as the boss fell back wielding a shattered sword while Zavros seemingly erected a barrier from nothing and with zero effort. Out of reflex and instinct alone, I gauged the strength of the barrier to find that I couldn’t, there was zero energy coming from the barrier at all. That was impossible. I was pulled out of my thoughts by Zavros’ stoic and seemingly uninterested tone considering what was happening just a few feet away. “Alright, questions?” he asked us before briefly turning to smirk at the boss with all the confidence of a man who either knows exactly what he is doing or has no idea what he has gotten himself into. Considering our duel, I'll guess the former. “Well, to start, I'll ask what happened when we approached the boss because all we saw was the boss walk towards us then suddenly fall back with a broken sword.” I surprised myself at how calm I was being about this considering everything happening and the mystery of the un-barrier. I looked to Tatsu to see if she had any questions and she was just watching where Blacklure was hitting the barrier. I leaned over and asked her, “Can you sense any energy coming from this barrier?” she turned to me and shook her head but gestured for me to look at blacklure. “Watch what happens right as he hits the barrier.” I watched very carefully, and I almost couldn’t figure it out until I saw exactly what she was looking at. Every Time blacklure hits the barrier it sinks in just slightly before bouncing off again and what was interesting was that the force he put into his strikes seemingly got thrown back at him. 

I turned to Zavros, and I knew that he knew that we saw what was happening to the barrier. He turned back towards us and addressed the silent question we were asking. “It’s called a mirror barrier, any physical or magical force that hits it gets reflected back upon whatever hit it using an outside source of energy to reflect it. For every amount of power placed against it, the same amount must be drained from somewhere to maintain it, that is why you can’t detect any power coming from it because there is none.” Tatsu looked quite amazed by this amazing feat of magic, but then she suddenly whipped her head around to look at Zavros with bewilderment. She asked with confusion, “But then, where the hell is all this energy coming from to resist for so long.” “I mean considering how fast he was, he must also be quite powerful as well, so how is this barrier still look as powerful as ever?” I, after thinking about that for a second also wanted to know that so I waited for the answer he would give us. He gave us one word in answer. “Runes.” 

Tatsu looked content with the answer and looked as if that answered the question without any doubt. I turned to him and turned his answer into a question. “Runes?” “Runes.” he answered back. “You realize that I have absolutely no idea what that means right?” He looked vaguely disappointed in me before informing me of what these “Runes” are, but his tone was as if patronizing a child for not realizing the obvious. “Runes are what separate the magic-users from magicians. A magic-user can create a shield to protect themselves using their own energy to power it, a magician can create a barrier that can last for as long as necessary without using much energy at all for one simple reason, magicians understand the importance of runes.” “A magic-user doesn’t see the importance of runes, they see it as a needless waste of time and to an extent, they are right, runes are useless unless you know how to use them correctly. For example, if I were to use the barrier I'm currently using against a magician it would be as useless as blocking a sword with a sheet of paper because they are too far away for the runes to take effect. However, a magic-user doesn’t even try to use runes because they don’t realize the potentially limitless ways that runes can be utilized, they think it can only be used for a few different purposes and therefore useless because everyone would know how to counter them. However, runes are potentially limitless because everyone combines the runes slightly differently, so there is no true counter to anyone barrier. For example, my barrier can theoretically last forever because of the runes I enhanced it with. This particular style is designed for a melee fighter. All along the circumference are vampire runes and power transfer runes behind them. The vampire runes absorb the energy the target is exerting as well as their potential energy and stores it within itself. The power transfer runes transfer the energy to any potential storage containers within the vicinity, in this case, my sword.” “This is important because I cast the barrier with my sword and it acts as the conduit through which energy passes to and from the barrier.” “So, it’s a simple equation, the barrier is using his own power against him, and it will stay up as long as he does.” “Now, the one downside to this barrier is that if no one is attacking then i have to sustain the barrier with my own energy and it would turn into a battle of attrition and patience.”

I listened to his explanation with an acute focus, knowing that this would help me tremendously later on. I then turned back to him and said, “Alright, that makes sense and knowing that I can breathe easier knowing that we are safe, but you didn’t answer my original question.”  
“Ah, yes, that.” he turned to Blacklure and seemed to think about his reply for a few seconds before turning back towards and giving us the answer. “Well, the boss was moving so fast that you couldn’t react to it and I just barely managed to draw my sword and block his attack. I quickly and with no regard for the consequences placed power into my sword arm before swinging and shattering his sword which due to the way speed and force works, exerted enough force to throw him back and that was what you saw.” I listened with complete disbelief because I couldn’t even begin to imagine something moving that fast. I just kind of stared at him for a second before snapping myself out of it and remaining silent and observing Blacklure for any hints and mentally creating a list of all the things I could say for sure about Zavros and seeing how many reasons I had to trust him and I could count them each on one hand. I still had to trust him to some extent though because he has saved our lives and I have no doubt that he will continue to do so. I saw Tatsu turn towards him with an inquisitive look on her face and I listened to her question in the chance that I can get more data on the unknown element that is Zavros Hellstrand.

She began with a simple line of inquiry. “The only question that I have left, i’m not sure you can answer, but this is only the first floor of the dungeon, right?” ‘Yeah, what’s your point?” “Why is this powerful an enemy on the first floor?” Zavros thought about this for a second, and I saw his face turn to one of slight guilt and remorse that disappeared so rapidly that I wasn’t quite sure if it was simply a trick of the light. He said, “Before I entered the game, I heard a rumor that some of the floor bosses would at random be direct copies of the players to add extra challenge.” “It was just unfortunate that the first floor was given one by pure chance and it was one of the more powerful players who it copied.”  
We thought about this for a few minutes longer before finally just deciding to get it over with and beat the boss. Tatsu half hid behind me when Zavros announced that he was going to drop his barrier and continue the fight. When we asked what we were supposed to do, he said that with the amount of energy drained from him he should be an equal opponent for the two of us and he was going to watch to observe our styles of fighting. He then before either of us could react, drew his sword from the ground, which dropped the barrier upon Blacklure’s next strike and then to give us time to react, he gave Blacklure a single cut along the back with his sword before withdrawing to let us handle it.

I turned to Tatsu, and we just nodded to each other and dropped into a standard battle stance we had taken in previous fights. I drew my sword and stood in a defensive position and performed some spells upon myself to enhance my abilities and regeneration. Tatsu delved into her magical reserves in preparation for the fight ahead. I briefly looked to the side and saw Zavros leaning against the wall of the room almost casually with his sword sheathed at his side, but if I had learned anything from him I that he could get in and save our lives the very moment he noticed that one of us was about to fall. I decided to ignore him in favor of the enemy in front of us.

I saw Tatsu nod to me to tell me she was ready for the first phase of the fight strategy. She first launched several spears of various elemental types to test his resistances while I followed them to try and strike him down while he was distracted but to no avail. He blocked all the spears thrown at him and then shifted to block my attacks as well. This continued for half an hour more with Tatsu throwing magic spears at him where she saw openings, and I engaged him head-on with blade and spell, but he seemed to be able to counter everything but I did notice that he was ever so slightly slowing down and I knew that we would win the battle of attrition. Or, we would’ve if not for one simple and completely unavoidable mistake. I went in for an attack just as Tatsu threw a light spear at him which shattered and sent light shards everywhere and distracted me for the shortest of time periods, but it was enough. A slash just a bit to the left of the target that he deflected and left me open to attack and I tried to regain balance and block his coming attacks, but his sword was already cleaving downwards on its way to bisect me and end my brief time in this game when all of the sudden time slowed down, and everything seemed to freeze, except for Zavros. He pushed himself off the wall and walked towards Blacklure and drew his sword and began a strike that would directly block the sword that was about to kill me when he looked at me and saw that I was following his every movement. He immediately recoiled, muttering, “Impossible.” but before I could figure out why I was frozen in time with him when I heard a voice inside my head.

**{Oh, this won’t do at all. Not at all. Sorry, but you’re going to feel this in the morning.}**  
The voice was soft, sweet. A woman's voice. But I was quickly pulled from any potential thoughts about this recent development when I saw a bright glow emanating from the back of my right hand. The glow disappeared as quickly as it came and in its place was a yellow gem.  
**{Now, this is going to sound confusing, but I want you to imagine appearing next to Tatsu right now. Imagine standing right next to her.}**  
I, having no options left because I was about to become two I followed the voices instructions and I imagined myself next to Tatsu, and I found myself there as if by teleportation but before I could figure it out, I passed out on the floor. 

Zavros’ POV  
I was utterly confused by what happened to Alxerczo, not that I didn’t know why it happened, but why I couldn’t sense it on him when I first encountered him. I just decided to focus on the boss now and why Alxerczo has a Monster Soulstone later.

I walked over to Blacklure and decided that I had seen enough to get an idea for how to improve their fighting skills. Despite all my power, I couldn’t properly finish Blacklure in less time than the human reaction time, so I was limited in how much carnage I could inflict onto Blacklure. While I thought about it, I cleanly amputated both arms and legs with as much ease as one would cutting butter with a warm knife. I then sheathed my sword and discreetly opened up the Nightmare dimension. I drew the dagger encased within and swiftly stabbed Blacklure with it. I then locked him in a pocket dimension for later. I wanted to know just how Genysis and his lackeys were creating copies of players. With that over, I walked back over to Tatsu and found her sitting next to Alxerczo.

I sat down next to her and watched over Alxerczo with her. I was subtlety monitoring Alxerczo’s magical levels and confirmed what I had seen earlier. This was a type of adjustment period so that his body can get used to the power he would gain and be using with his Monster Soulstone. Normally, this wasn’t necessary, from my experience with similar things, but it seemed that because he awakened it during combat and near-death and then immediately using one of it’s more complex techniques to escape it, his body took the full force of it, and he couldn’t yet handle it so for safety, it knocked him unconscious to finish the adjustment between the two powers. Once I had confirmed that he would be okay for the time being, I turned to Tatsu and began to wait for her to be finished with her observation of Alxerczo. 

-Several Hours Later-

Tatsu’s POV

Well, the last day has been one of the most eventful days of my life, I started it off routing patrol routes to search for the boss room, i looked up as a messenger arrived shouting that another player had joined the game, meeting a person who looked like he had no care in the world, him challenging us to a duel and then winning the duel seemingly without any effort whatsoever and then following the man to the dungeon and watch as he saved our lives as if it were a thing that he does every day. However, while we were asking questions he always had a slight look in his eyes as if he was resigned to getting questions or being doubted. Now, I couldn’t think about what could be powerful enough to doubt him, but that wasn’t the point. I listened to every answer he gave, and he talked about his use of magic like it was personal experience as if he’s had years to perfect his magic. It was quite unusual, but I couldn’t think much of it before Alxerczo, and I were put into combat with Blacklure. The fight went quickly and at a relative pace but it was frustrating and thus seemed longer, Blacklure was repelling and countering every one of our attacks, and it appeared that the only element that could harm him was light. Despite not hitting him, every time I would throw one at him, he would ever so slightly slow down and disengage from Alxerczo to dodge far more than necessary as if he was afraid of light itself.

The problem with my part of our strategy was quickly approaching, and that was that because I used every element that I had access to, I couldn't create any significant amount of efficiency and every spear was practically bleeding mana instead of containing it. It is because of this that my proportionally rather large mana pool can be drained quickly. As I was approaching the run-off point into my strength to power my spells, Blacklure created an opening as Alxerczo went to attack him. I created the most potent light spear I dared create with what little magical power I had left and I hurled it at Blacklure. What happened next seemed to go in slow motion. I watched as the light spear went towards their clash, Alxerczo’s sword edging towards him, and when my light spear was just about to hit him, the worst thing that could happen, happened. The light spear ran out of energy, and it shattered. The shards distracted Alxerczo enough that when he flinched his sword’s attack angle altered to go to the left of Blacklure and allowed him to be pushed to the ground. I watched as Alxerczo tried to get up and Blacklure’s sword went downwards to meet him. I watched as he suddenly disappeared and Zavros was suddenly feet away from Blacklure and began a combo of moves that I couldn’t follow but could see the results of. I watched as all four limbs cleanly fell off and then he was suddenly gone. I turned to look around to see if he teleported and I saw Alxerczo at my feet.

I immediately knelt down to examine him for injuries. I saw none, and he still had a pulse, so he wasn’t dead, but he had a strange yellow gem embedded into the back of his right hand. I felt Zavros’ presence to my left and found him by Alxerczo’s side as well. We eventually just decided that the best thing to do was set up a small camp and wait for Alxerczo to wake up. We kept a warrior’s silence between us. A warrior’s silence is a state that is found only between a group of people who are facing death together. It is a companionable silence that leaves nothing to be said, and both parties were content with just sitting in each other’s company. This left me with several hours to think about the future and the mysterious Zavros Hellstrand. The problem with him is that he is so powerful that it seems impossible that he didn’t have at least some magical power to enhance his movements. Either that or somehow he wasn’t even human. Whatever it turned out to be, I trusted him to reveal it when we were ready for it. I also began to think about how we were going to survive all 1000 floors. I quickly realized that the second level boss wasn’t going to be anywhere near as tough as this one if Zavros is to be believed, and with Zavros training us, we would be in safe hands. I occupied my time with thoughts like this. 

When morning came, Alxerczo hadn’t yet woken up, and Zavros appeared to be asleep, but I was pretty sure that if anything attacked us, he would kill it before we could blink and go back to his seemingly asleep state. I sat up and gathered to things from my inventory and made us some breakfast. I started off with a small fire and cooked us some virtual eggs and bacon. Cooking in this game is far easier than in real life because all I have to do to cook eggs and bacon was a tap on the empty skillet and select eggs and bacon and it would then it would pull the ingredients from my inventory and give me a timer until it was done. I sat back and waited for it to be done. It took only minutes for the timer to go off and I leaned forward to turn it off. I summoned a plate and fork out of magic and reached to grab some to eat. When I was only centimeters from grabbing it, it disappeared and I will give you three guesses who did it and the first two don’t count. I looked up and saw Zavros sitting there with a slight smirk on his face while holding his own plate and fork with an egg and some bacon on it. I just shook my head and went back to the eggs and bacon to find them all off the skillet and on separate plates beside it. I looked back up and he was still smirking but he was now eating some bacon. When he finished it, he simply said to my questioning face that if I had left them on longer then they would’ve burned. I simply sighed and sat back, grabbing my share of the eggs and bacon and we waited in silence for Alxerczo to wake up. When we had finished he asked me to keep the remaining eggs and bacon warm for Alxerczo.

I sat up straight and asked him in slight disbelief just how I was supposed to do that. He leaned back and calmly stated as if it were obvious that I should encase them in a magical barrier and seal a small fire in there with it. The fire will burn until it runs out of oxygen and the barrier will keep the heat inside. I thought about it and it was evident when one actually applies some common sense to their magic. I did so and we waited for Alxerczo to wake up. Upon asking him when he would wake up, he said that he will wake up sometime today and it’s all determined by how resistant his magical core is. He would say nothing more on the subject and I just resigned myself to time’s cold embrace and fell asleep. I awoke a few hours later to Zavros lightly shaking me awake because Alxerczo had begun to wake up. He asked me to form a very thin barrier in a 5-foot radius of him. I obeyed because I knew that he would have a good reason for asking this of me. I then watched as he planted his sword next to it and enhanced the barrier with it. We then stood by and waited.

Alxerczo’ POV  
I woke up suddenly and looked around for danger. I found myself beside Tatsu and Zavros waiting for me to wake up. I got up and looked around and found myself within a barrier. This barrier, as opposed to a mirror barrier, had a magical presence. The presence was overwhelming, and I was forced back to the ground. Then all of the sudden it dissipated, but it was still there. I stood back up and looked at Zavros and Tatsu. I simply stood there waiting for when they would let me out of the barrier. I assumed that Tatsu had created it, but I knew that she wouldn’t place it without Zavros asking her to. I also knew that the instant I woke up, she would drop the barrier, but that it would be pointless because Zavros would with all his great power still power the barrier by himself. I waited for a few minutes before asking him what he was observing me for. 

He replied with a seemingly meaningless sentence at the time. “Incipient madness. Loss of self-awareness. Black spots in the whites of the eyes. Any of the possible indications of possession by soulstone.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant because I felt the same except I felt a little more powerful than before and when I observed my core I found one of the tendrils had been enhanced. I wasn’t sure which one because of the barrier and fear of what Zavros would do to me if I began powering a possible offense-centric magic. I couldn’t think much more on the subject before a voice interrupted any other conversation.

**{As if I would need to do such a thing and as if I would survive your wrath if I were to do so.}**  
Zavros seemed uninterested in the voice, while Tatsu half-hid behind him. Zavros crossed his arms and gave a calm response. “At least you have some sense, and I did doubt that you would do so even if your existence weren't being threatened, it just wouldn’t be in your nature.”  
**{Very observant of you, Red Shadow. But you are correct, It isn’t in my nature to risk my host’s physical health.}**  
After that, the voice faded, and Zavros withdrew his sword from the ground, and I dropped the barrier with a quick jab. I turned to Zavros, and he just waited for any inevitable questions, as always. I started off with what the voice was. He informed me that it was my soulstone and it was one of the potentially more powerful ones. He called it Thunderbird, and it would enhance my Lightning Magic, and it would provide me with certain magic techniques unique to it. I was content with this answer after he taught me how to commune with the spirit of the Thunderbird. We then began to exit the dungeon in what would become our battle formation. Zavros at the front, Me on his left and Tatsu on his right.

No One's POV  
They left "Castle Blackstone" as it would later be called, and met up with the legions atop the ground and headed home, their warrior’s silence holding strong. They walked together knowing that win or fail what they were going to accomplish would be spoken of for generations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, sorry for the wait, I just by my very nature want to write but Youtube, Reddit, and other things grab my interest for too long a time and the fact that I have School from 7:00 am to 2:00 pm Monday thru Friday, I have little brain power left that isn't devoted to Sleeping and Food, so I just kind of fall asleep with the wish I had written some more that day. But fear not, I will never be that writer that just takes months-long hiatus' without decent explanation. I will on the promise of my life, never go longer than a month without updating and if I do, I will provide an explanation.  
> As always, if I do go absent or make some grave mistake in my writing come to me and kick my ass with all the fury of Zavros himself or at least message me so I can fix it.
> 
> On that note, enjoy my stories, live your lives and remember that a man chooses, a slave obeys because the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.


	3. Back at Town, Fixing Problems and Fighting Duels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys, Gals, Demons, Angels, and whatever else there is to address one by, I am ever so sorry I took so long with this chapter but I just had a brief bit of writer's block about how to adapt the story to the new canon I created for it. When I first started this story about a year and a half ago I made several grave mistakes in how I wrote it and the legendary Zavros that you know and will continue to hear about was just a human being who kicked far more ass than he had any right to be able to. But Chapter 3 is finally here and I do hope that you enjoy it. 
> 
> If you don't at least tell me why and I will take it into consideration. If you have any questions about any characters just ask and I will try not to spoil anything later on in the story.

Tatsu's POV  
On our way back from the dungeon we walked in silence, but due to the nature of us, that silence couldn’t be held for long. We just had questions to our questions about this guy, and he was almost maddeningly unhelpful when it didn’t suit him. The silence held longer than I thought but I guess that could just be due to Alxerczo’s and my way of thinking. I was a very analytical type of person, and I could figure out most things on my own, but Zavros, I couldn't figure out. He was unmistakably powerful if our duel and how he handled Blacklure was to be believed. But he was unlike any leader I had ever seen; he didn't parade his power around to show he was better than anyone, he didn't even tell people his capability or anything about himself at all beyond what his actions said about him. I had so many questions for him, but I doubted we would get any real answers to our questions. But, If we don’t try, we won’t ever know, so, I asked him if I could ask some questions about him while we walked. He initially seemed surprised, but his face quickly changed to one of idle curiosity and boredom. He allowed me to ask away and he would try to answer them. I started off with what he did before the game, noting how he was certainly skilled at what he did and it seemed that he had professional combat training. He said that he had lived in Japan for a period of time and learned the art of kenjutsu and mixed it with the European style to compliment his sword’s style. It was impressive to hear that he had training of such magnitude at such a seemingly young age. My second question was if he had any experience leading people. He said that his father was a famous military general and he had just learned from his example. My questions were harmless ones like this and always had an answer for them. 

However, ultimately this questioning revealed nothing even remotely useful to us but the last question I asked causing him to pause for a brief second, but shortly afterwards, he did give us an answer. The subject I asked about was what he did to Blacklure. He said that he had merely activated a combo that killed him but went fast enough to escape your perception of time. His answer was puzzling but believable especially considering what we had seen of him so far. As I pondered any further questions, I realized we had arrived at the town, ended the questioning quickly, no closer to any revealing truths than before.

Zavros’ POV  
After a while, we had arrived at the town, and I could stop needing believable lies to Tatsu’s questions. None of the answers were complete lies, but they weren’t the full truth either. As we advanced into the town, We started checking each shop for progress, observing for any faults in the city. I saw a few places improvements could be made, but voicing them would probably get ignored because I was an unknown element. I did, however, come up with some ideas on how to covertly and without apparent cause change them. For example, I saw that the guards were getting lazy with their observation and patrols. I certainly had some ideas about that one.

Alxerczo sent the legions off to relax and take it easy for a while. I told Alxerczo and Tatsu that I would meet them at their command center and told them to get some rest and recover from the fight; I would talk to them in the morning and inform them more about Soulstones then. They accepted my answer and seemed too tired to question it thoroughly. After sending them on their way, I made my way to an empty house on the outskirts of town, next to the wall and prepared myself for when I would fix the guards at nightfall.  


-A Couple of Hours Later-

The sun had slipped beneath the horizon, and I followed it out when the night guards relieved the exhausted day guards. I then began walking North towards my destination.  
After only a few minutes at walking speed, my destination was in sight. My destination you ask? It was a terribly named Nordic crypt with a busted door. I was here because of what was contained within. This crypt was the hidden prison and encampment of Demons, the main enemy of the game and complete mockery of real demons. I made some precautions and hid my aura from all to keep them from feeling my presence.  
I then snuck into “The Pit” as it was called and found nothing except empty sarcophagi and old linen wraps. However, as I advanced further, I found the floor covered with blood and bodies. It appeared that the original inhabitants, The Dead, tried to fight back. I made sure to not step on any of the bodies out of respect for the dead and the honor they probably had in life. It was like this in every single chamber until I was met by a chamber that seems to be a recent addition. In the final chamber, there was a bookcase pushed in front of an opening in the wall. I didn’t immediately go through the opening because there was a mysterious circle on a platform next to the opening. I observed it, and it was an incredibly powerful shield charm with runes to draw power from whatever was placed within it. This was incredibly confusing because usually runed shields are built to use the power of attacks to power it and not remain up for a long period. The only people I know who could’ve used this kind of shield for any efficient period of time would be my grandfather and me, and that was only because we would generate more power naturally than it would pull from us, but it would be close to matching it. And that is not a good thing for a magician to try to use. I was instantly wary of what could be beyond the opening because not only would whatever had been inside the shield charm have been exceptionally powerful; something would’ve had to break the shield or manipulate it to get it out. I quickly etched the design into my memory and continued through the opening. The opening continued for around 50 feet before opening up on a ledge looking down upon a massive chamber. I crouched down and found that I could look down on their numbers quite easily without them seeing me. I had no idea how many of them that I saw, but judging by the sheer size of the group it was certainly in the thousands. It was certainly a lot by anyone’s visual standards but still within the norm for myself. I did have to restrict my use of magic even more than usual just in case someone senses it, so I quickly drew my sword and softly dropped down to the ground, my mind already coming up with the best way to make my example. I started off by manipulating my sword into a curved dagger and quickly eliminated and hid the bodies of the first 100 before the rest of the demons caught on that something was happening. They quickly grouped up and began to observe every angle, preventing me from taking them down without them noticing some missing demons from the line. I thought up how I was going to deal with the hoard and began to test the “magicness” of the area and found the place to almost be a natural reservoir of magic. This fact brought a sadistic smile to my face because it meant I could really wreak havoc on these demons without much fear of detection. I started by forming my sword back to its original form then to a short and light sword with a vorpal edge. I then stepped out into the open and watched the demons scurry into something resembling a battle formation. They first prepared themselves with a simple shield wall and spears. This formation is quite useful if one is taking on a cavalry charge, but I am only one man with the speed and agility of a naturally born demon. I leaped over their shield wall and froze their lower bodies with magical circles planted at their feet. Finding myself at one end of the line I quickly got into a position to make my next move more manageable. I took off with exceptional speed running down the line, my vorpal edged sword never failing. I planned to make an example to the guards and what better what to do that than with a good old-fashioned slaughter.

When I reached the end of the row, I looked back on the destruction in my wake. I watched as the first demon on the line drop his weapon before exploding outwards in a fountain of blood and gore in precisely twelve pieces. The rest of the demons on the line swiftly followed him in his flamboyant death. I would later count out how many demons were in that line, and even I was impressed at how fast I had managed to kill them all in such a short period of time. However, I couldn’t think on it long before turning around to check on the rest of the demons, and they were charging me one by one, and this was precisely what I was hoping for. Time to practice my bladesmanship. 

Ten seconds. It doesn't seem like a long time, does it? For a swordsman, it often feels like an hour every second and for those who are fighting me a day passes every second. From a spectator’s point of view, I just vanished and reappeared for only a split second at a time, barely noticeable as I cut through the demons one by one, each one left in at least two pieces. Blood began to thicken the air and made it seem like the cave had suddenly developed a severe amount of humidity. Eventually, the demons did get smarter and they attempted to outsmart me and formed a circle where each demon was reinforced by the one behind him. I found this to be a rather pathetic strategy and gathered some power from the air and then threw it at the remaining few hundred demons. As soon as it hit them, about 50 of them flew up into the air and I decided to test just how much resolve these demons had. I blitzed forwards and leapt upwards and then two at a time began to kill them with nothing more than momentum and a few well-placed spikes on the wall. I started by grabbing two of them out of the air and then used my momentum to pivot and land on the wall and pulled them across a spike in opposite directions before whipping around and letting the halves land on the demon hoard. Then, before I had even finished that movement, I turned and kicked off the wall and grabbed two more out of the air and I started pulling them in opposite directions before whipping around letting go of one arm, letting their momentum rip them in half before landing on the demon hoard, and I continued to do this with the rest of the demons that were in the air about half and half death by spike and half by momentum with a few gravity related deaths for fun. When I finally landed, I slowly stood up and saw that their resolve was very nearly broken. I slowly advanced upon the rest of the crowd. I was, despite my near Hellrazer Drive state, acutely aware that the group had ceased their movement and had gone so silent that the sound of a pin dropping would’ve seemed like an atomic bomb. 

They didn’t stay still for long, though, as they quickly and quite sloppily retreated backward forming themselves into a circle in fear and so it would be harder for me to do any of the previous strategies I had employed upon them. However, It is a bad warrior who cannot think of multiple tactics. So, I had planned for this common strategy and had the perfect method of slaughter for them. I effortlessly enacted a slow and torturous death upon them with the strength of a pure demonic shield. I formed it around them in a bubble extending in a perfect sphere and slowly began contracting it inwards crushing them into nothing more than a general mixture of flesh, blood, and metal. When the orb, initially 100 feet across shrank to less than 10, I instantly turned the shield off, allowing the compound of demons to explode out due to the intense pressure it was under. It was coating the cave with it, and I, in my near Hellrazer state, found it an apt way to provide an example to the guards.  
As I was leaving, I began to gather all the Hellrazer energy I had accumulated over the course of the fight and concentrated it on my left hand in an orb. When I reached the entrance of the cave and the broken door, I used it to form a new door and with it, an aura of fear that would dissuade any who would try to enter it before I was ready. Just as I was prepared to head back to town I remembered that my slaughter would do no good if no one knew I had done it so, I went to the entrance of the cave and slashed open my hand with a dagger, forming a steady blood flow, and brought the trail it created into the town. I left the trail slowly as to undoubtedly lead the guards towards the cave to find “The Reaper’s” handiwork, I decided to name this character who did this. I double checked the trail, to make sure it stopped in the middle of the city leaving them with no idea who did it. I then worked my way towards the command center just as the dawn's light was peeking over the horizon. 

I arrived at the command center, put my gear in its place to make it apparent I was here all night. I then waited for Alxerczo and Tatsu to wake up so I could brief them on what we should do in the future and prepared myself for how I was going to react to the carnage in the cave that we would inevitably be called to investigate. The more I thought about it, the more I almost pitied my team and the guards for what we were going to find. Alxerczo woke up first, and I greeted him and served him a cup of the coffee I had been brewing while I waited for them to wake up. He took the mug, too tired to remember he doesn’t trust me and sat down, accepting that I would talk when I was ready to. Tatsu followed soon after and took her mug of coffee, sitting opposite me. We sat there in silence, falling into the warrior’s silence we were so familiar with.

We sat with our coffee for a while comfortable with the apparent peace before I followed them to the strategy room to discuss how we were going to continue, an unspoken agreement between us not to discuss the dungeon until we were on better terms strategically and personally. We started with where we thought the entrance to the next level of the world was, the dungeon was more than just levels upon levels of nothing, as every level was an entirely new level of the world, with its own sky, its own towns, it’s own world. We agreed that we would have to search the dungeon again because it would only make sense that the next level would only open up when the boss of the previous level was gone. We were about to form the legions for this very task when a courier interrupted us informing us of the news I had been waiting with anticipation for the entire morning. The blood trail had been found....

Alxerczo's POV  
We all prepared our gear for what had seemed like nothing at the time. I saw that Zavros’ gear was in its place and properly stored, assumedly put there last night. When we were all ready to go on the chase we set off, but I noticed that the gem on Zavros’ sword glowed a little less brightly than before, almost imperceptible, but it caught my eye. I knew I would be the only one to notice it because it was virtually impossible to discern it. As I observed it, I saw that it was a bit darker than before. Its a bit hard to explain, but I always thought of it as a scale of 1-10, if the gem was at a 10 previously, it was at a 9.95 now. 

As I said, almost imperceptible, and I had no idea what it was, and I didn’t at the moment have the time to ask the Thunderbird about it. I did not doubt that it was powerful because it wouldn’t be in his character for it not to be. I almost asked him about it, but I remembered his answers to Tatsu's questions that revealed nothing that wasn’t obvious upon further thought and anything we didn't know was only told without any chance of examining further. Every possible situation I could think got me no further. 

We then got to the blood trail, and any questions died quickly when I saw this trail. It went even further when I saw the guards standing around the city. I compared their stances from yesterday to today, and it was even more than night and day. Yesterday they were lazing about, leaning on their swords, shields on the ground, etc. Today they couldn't have been more alert. They walked with military precision, held their swords and shields at their positions without moving at all. It was almost embarrassing that I wasn’t the one who noticed how casual the guards were being. I then turned and observed the blood trail and gathered Zavros and Tatsu to talk about what to do.

"So, what should we do about this, if this were to get out it could cause a mass panic amongst the people, and we all know how rumors work right?" 

Zavros responded calmly, "We will follow the trail." "Then, we will assign 4 of the trusted legion commanders to clean this up and take 5 more with us to discover where this goes."

Tatsu tried looking confident and strong, but she was terrified by the prospect of following a blood trail. I asked her if she was okay with doing this and she said that she would have to become dependable to be trusted with dangerous and scary missions if she was to survive this game. 

With that conversation over, we sent some of the guards to gather the commanders we would need for such a mission, and we began to follow the trail and ended up by the city gates within the hour. We waited for our backup to arrive and I suggested we train with each other to pass the time. I had an ulterior motive to my suggestion, and I would use this opportunity to analyze Zavros' skill and fighting style.

I set up the first fight as me vs. him to test his swordsmanship and his defense against magic attacks.  
I challenged him to a duel and set it to one strike mode to avoid killing each other. It started out standard; I would take a swipe at him, he would defend it, pretty standard. It was only when I started using magic that things started getting interesting. It started with him spinning out of the way of a lightning bolt I had conjured when he was in the middle of attacking him with my sword to try and catch him off guard, as if that would work and this went on for several minutes with me getting more and more frustrated until I finally decided to try overwhelming force as a strategy and began to rapidly form lightning balls in a revolving circle around me expanding in layers upon layers around me draining my magical reserves far less than I first thought, it almost didn’t even drain my magical reserves at all. I could say with some certainty that the over 50 orb's drain on my reserves would be restored within a few minutes of rest. I wanted to keep forming orbs, but then for some reason, they just stopped forming. I then looked over and watched as Zavros just stood there waiting for me to unleash the magic upon him. This frustrated me even more because he acted like this full barrage of lightning wasn’t a concern for him in the slightest. I delved even deeper into my reserves and began conjuring magic spheres of pure light. Zavros then showed just the slightest amount of concern but not much. I think he was more concerned about my massive use of magic. However, it only lasted a second before he sheathed his sword and just stood there with interest and a small amount of smugness like he knew something that I didn’t. 

I kept conjuring up spheres until I ran the risk of overwhelming my mind with the strain of keeping focus on all of them. When I conjured my final sphere, I unleashed them all on Zavros. It looked like he was just going to let it hit him until he raised one hand and all the spheres just stopped, and he took all the Lightning spheres in one hand and all the Light ones in the other. They then merged into two massive spheres and then they were compressed down into spheres the size I had been firing at him, but they had all the power of the spheres combined. I marveled temporarily at the sheer amount of willpower and control one would have to have over magic to perform such a feat, and he didn’t even look like it was any problem for him to do. He then crushed both spheres, and they became pure magic once again, and it all flowed back into me by some unknown force that I’m pretty sure we all know where it came from. When I was done just blinking at just how outclassed I was in magical control he said one sentence that further solidified his position at the top. “Your control of magic is admirable, but you just chose the wrong person to try and out-duel.” 

As soon as he finished his sentence, he instantly disappeared, and I heard the ding that signals the end of a duel followed by the sting of metal across my throat and looked down to see Zavros about a foot from my face and a long slash, just deep enough to draw blood across my throat. Before I could even think about how fast he could’ve been moving and just how skilled at bladesmanship; he made his feat even more impressive when he informed me of one crucial fact about his sword. He calmly informed me that his sword currently had a vorpal edge. My eyes widened so far that I thought they would pop out of their sockets. My mind went completely blank, and I realized that without any shred of doubt that I had just looked Death in the face and survived. He then sheathed his sword and walked away to let me drop to my knees in fear as I just thought about how we were only surviving because he was allowing us to. 

How if Zavros wanted to, he could kill all of us, and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. We could all put up one giant shield powered by all of our reserves, and he would break it without any visible effort. We could all attack him at once, and it wouldn’t touch a single hair on his head, and he would have the audacity to look bored while doing it. I just stood up and looked over at Tatsu to find a similar expression on her face. I walked over to her, and we just sat down and stared out into the distance without a word passing between us for the longest time. Eventually, we calmed down, and we began comparing what we had observed in my fight with him. We were talking calmly, but we both still had a look in our eyes that showed absolute fear as we both for the first time looked at the task in front of us and how daunting it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, for anyone who wants the full explanation of why this chapter took so long (at least by my standards) is I started writing it as I usually would, getting in a few dozen words when I could and then trying to adapt more when I got home and do great battle with the siren calls of Youtube and Sleep that I would eventually lose. Until I got sick for about 2 weeks from allergies killing my immune system allowing a common cold to last for two weeks and shut down all creativity and writing ability. Then the dreaded writer's block hit and I hit a wall in how to change a particular part of this chapter to fit the new ideas and trying to be eagle-visioned when checking for continuity errors or plot holes. I think I have all of them but I can't guarantee it. If you do find one though, send me a comment or message and I will try to fix it.
> 
> As always, enjoy my stories, live your lives and remember that a man chooses, a slave obeys because the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. After all, we're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.


	4. The Second Duel, Tatsu's Attempt, and Trust Built.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys, Girls, Demons, Angels, Dragons, etc. etc. I have once again almost broken my promise to both you and myself to never go longer than a month without updating as I've heard that any longer and you will forget what was happening, so on, so forth. For a full apology and explanation refer to the end of the chapter.
> 
> *hides from your possible rage*  
> *yells from far away* "I'm very sorry but please don't call Zavros to come kick my ass!"  
> "I'll be hiding in the endnote."

_"Thoughts"_  
_**"Thunderbird/Monster Soul inner conversation"**_  
**"Thunderbird/Monster Soul external(Audible) conversation"**

Alxerczo's POV

As we sat there, we eventually started to calm down and think about all the times he has saved us when it would’ve just been easier to let us die and continue on with the game. After a couple of minutes, we realized that none of us were in any danger from him at all because he seems to do everything in his power to just stand by and make sure we survive the game with only the bare minimum casualties possible. When he showed back up and asked for a rematch with no magic we stood up and got into position with Tatsu standing to the side waiting for her turn. 

Our duel went much the same as our previous one had started, I would attack, and he would block it with the same enthusiasm as one would when swatting a fly. I was trying tactic after tactic, but to no avail, he would just block the blow again. I was on the verge of giving up and letting Tatsu try beating him when he made the duel interesting when he stopped defending against my attacks. He just planted his sword in the ground by his side and let me hit him with blow after blow, or I would’ve if I didn’t stop just short of hitting him. He then spoke up and said that the duel would now end when one of us gives up. Previously the duel would be won by who landed the first blow. I was curious as to why he would do this, but if he wanted to play a game, then I would play it and win. I went on an assault of moves against him, and he didn’t move an inch to defend himself. This went on for several minutes before I grew tired and took a step back to regain my breath. He turned towards me and silence fell over the world as I waited for what was going to happen next. 

He began to walk towards me slowly, leaving his sword behind. Then stopped about 5 feet from and stood there as I observed as his wounds healed before my eyes, They were all gone within seconds and simply made it even more clear how pointless it was to try and outclass him in any form of combat. He then extended his arm, and his sword came back to him via what I believe was telekinesis. He then sheathed his sword and stood with his hands behind his back before addressing us once more. “No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to damage me because you cannot exert enough wounds upon me or deep enough wounds to outpace my healing factor. In its slowest state without me exerting magic to speed it up, I can heal about 30 minor wounds and 10 major wounds every 5 seconds.” We just stood there, and I finally had my answer to the question of how he could look any foe in the eye and show no fear or concern. It was simply impossible for him to be damaged for a significant period of time by anything we had faced so far except Blacklure and that was without him defending himself using his sword or his magic. I then felt for reasons beyond myself, my distrust and almost resentment of his abilities just went away, and I realized that Zavros was just here to help us; even if he can be somewhat frightening in his abilities sometimes. I began to respect Zavros because he doesn’t throw his overwhelming power around without reason or at all. He lets all of us develop our own abilities, only helping us when we were in grave danger. He only actually demonstrates how far above us in power he is when he needs to prove a point; and usually, he only needs to prove his point once. So, he just kinda is there with his power and helps us and allows others to discover his power for themselves and lets other people be the one responsible for finding the truth. I then understood why he chose to do this with me. Specifically, he was showing me that he was trustworthy and how far he trusts me. Although he doesn’t really need to trust me because I can’t actually inflict any significant amount of damage on him even if I could manage to surprise him. The whole point of this charade and his duel was to allow me to gain some of the answers I was looking for. Realizing this, I resigned from the duel and went back to the sidelines to watch the duel with Tatsu. I knew that this duel would be fascinating to watch because Tatsu can't do anything but use magic, so I was curious as to how Zavros was going to handle the duel. Was he going to counter her magic? Turn it against her? I had no idea what he was going to do, but I could use this to study how he reacts to certain magic attacks.

Tatsu started the duel as I expected her to, she delved into her reserves and began to create various elemental spears before going on the attack. Her method of attack was obvious but still effective when brought against a regular opponent, but as we have already learned from our fights against and with Zavros, he is no typical opponent, he is efficient in his combat style, its almost as if he can calculate in his head exactly how much movement and force is necessary to perform the evasions, parries, and attacks he does. And thus, when Tatsu threw the elemental spears at Zavros he evaded all the light spears, deflected all the fire and ice ones and caught all the lightning ones. When he had caught all the lightning spears, they reformed into one more massive spear then back down to 12 spears of equal power to the bigger spear. I was once again astonished by how advanced, and precise his control of magic is, but it seemed he wasn’t done. He collapsed all of the spears into a ball of pure energy, and the energy was then used to form one spear of every single element Tatsu had thrown at him. They were all perfect spears and contained the same amount of power as the other. Tatsu was the one who spoke up about it. “How the hell did you do that?” “You took only ¼ of my spears, reformed them into 12 lightning spears of equal power to the combined one of all 12 of mine then you removed the element and reformed it into a ball of pure energy that you then used to form perfect spears of every element with each one holding the combined power of 12 of mine and all of them have 100% efficiency.” “For me to perform the same thing it would take me 3x my reserves of energy and hours of calculating the efficiency for each one.” “So, I’ll ask again, just how the hell did you do that?”

Zavros’ response was something we should’ve seen coming. “I just have more experience than you and thus have less of a struggle when calculating efficiency because I’ve done the calculations before. Trust me, the more you do the calculations, the easier they are to do again.” “You should note that each spear is the exact same size. This is the most common size of spear, and thus you will eventually memorize the calculation for the efficiency of any element. Of course, this is still a small spear and thus limited in its power. You can pump magic into it, and it will increase in power until either the strain overwhelms your willpower or you pump in too much magic, and the efficiency formula can’t keep up.” “Now, as you gain more power you can get a faster efficiency formula and thus pump more power into smaller attacks.” “Like Alxerczo for example.” I looked up in confusion when I heard my name. “You have the Thunderbird, and this gives you one of the most powerful efficiency formulas possible. That was why you could form so many lightning balls at such low cost when you attacked me.” I just blinked and went into my mind to consult with the Thunderbird about it. _“Is that true?”_  
_**“Quite. Although you are still too weak to handle the number of lightning balls you can conjure with your new formula. Your mind would be, well, strained to near death by how much focus you’d have to devote to it.”**_  
_“Interesting, do you know how many lightning balls Zavros would be able to conjure?”_  
_**“Tell me which variable to try and calculate out a believable number and then you will have to prepare yourself for what I say.”**_  
_“What variables are you referring to?”_  
_**“Focus, Efficiency, and Magic Pool.”**_  
_“Go through them one by one I guess.”_  
_**“I have absolutely no idea how large each of his variables is, so I will try to provide context for each variable assuming that the other two are infinite.”**_  
_**“If he had infinite focus and 100% efficiency no matter the size, but his natural magic supply, maybe in the tens of thousands, each one having enough power to obliterate a city.”**_  
_**“If he had infinite magic and 100% efficiency, probably a couple thousand, with enough power in one to destroy a country.”**_  
_**“I could go on, but I don’t want to strain your brain any further with the absurd capabilities of him, but to be honest, I have no idea how many, how efficient, or what destructive capability he really can do because he’s never had to fight with full power against a foe before. All the magic he’s faced thus far has been child’s play to him.**_

I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I couldn’t even imagine how he managed to just stay on the sidelines and watch us struggle. When I returned from my conversation with the Thunderbird I reflected on what Zavros had said and explanation made perfect sense, and it was said without a hint of smugness or a condescending tone. It was just simple information told from teacher to student. Tatsu just nodded and I could tell she was filing this information away for later use. She did then try to surprise and overwhelm him with just about the least subtle attack I’ve ever seen. She leapt up in the air and formed a light hammer about 5 feet across to try and stop Zavros from running and she probably also noticed that when she had used Light before he outright dodged the light ones instead of deflecting them. This could, of course, have been just for the sake of proving a point but she couldn’t be sure. I watched as Zavros just stood there until the hammer was just about to hit him and he then simply drew his sword and slashed in one fluid motion through Tatsu’s hammer. It seemed as if time had slowed down and at first nothing happened except the hammer froze in mid-air about a foot from Zavros and then suddenly the hammer shattered as time sped back up. Tatsu in a complete middle finger to momentum and logic went flying backwards as if hit by an invisible force and she nearly hit the wall and break at least a few bones before Zavros appeared out of thin air to catch her and bring her back over to where I was standing next to the wall. After he laid her down in a sitting position against the wall he stood up and looked over at me with a slight apologetic look in his eyes. “Sorry, that wasn’t exactly supposed to happen.” I knelt down and found Tatsu to be on the edge of consciousness and she was mumbling something to herself and I brought my ear to her mouth to try and make out what she was saying. I could only discern two words being repeated a couple times before she finally succumbed to sleep. I was then left to think about what the hell “Night’s Edge” was. I couldn’t tell if it was a person, a location, or maybe it was an item but I had never heard of it and neither had the Thunderbird. The best the Thunderbird could come up with was that it sounded like something someone would name a magic weapon or an evil castle of ultimate dark intentions or some bullshit like that.

Eventually after assuring myself that Tatsu was fine for the moment I sat down and began a conversation with Zavros. We just talked about the duel and various magic theories we had and He answered questions if I had any and I found myself being able to converse with him easily and found him to be a nice and trustworthy guy who was having as much fun as the rest of us. I knew in my mind that he was without a doubt stronger than any of us, maybe even all of us but it no longer bothered me. I think it was just because he had never displayed his power as some sort of status or used his power to get what he wanted or demand respect for it. He just had the power to exist and be happy following instead of being the one who has followers. He let every person develop their respect for him on their own time. Eventually, during a lull in our conversation I asked him about the different tactics he used to persuade Tatsu and I and develop our respect for him.

He took a second to look up into the sky and lean back against the wall next to Tatsu before giving a response one would expect to hear from a leader. "You and Tatsu are two separate people who treated my apparent distrust of my team and high power level that I had very differently. Tatsu accepted it and tried for herself to figure it out without passing judgment, a truly unique character trait. She believed that I would reveal my power on my own and she was alright with that." "You, however, borderline resented me for this, you hated the idea that I was so much more powerful than you guys, you kinda took the standard approach of how unfair it was that I didn’t help more and how I just went casually through the world seemingly without care for another person.”

"In our first duel, I aimed to give you an outlet for your resentment by letting you attack me relentlessly for an extended period and hope that you would see some reason upon being given a target to hit so the speak. However, that backfired when you resented me even more because I was blocking your attacks so effortlessly. It reached a point that you turned to your magical ability to try and hit me, and you did do an admirable job of it, you relied on your two easiest elements to use, Lightning and Light and began to form magic spheres in an attempt to overwhelm me. I knew that this wasn’t the way to go and then simply nullified your attack with my longer experience using magic and then I realized what it would take for you to trust me and came up with the idea to end the duel in a seemingly impossible way and leave you to figure out your own conclusions and realize that I’m just here to help you guys. I then used the second duel to answer your unanswered and unasked question about how I could seemingly look so confident that I would survive the fight with whatever enemy I was facing by allowing you to hit me over and over again without me defending and letting the blows hit me. It was through this method that I gained your trust, you always had some level of respect and confidence in me. Otherwise, you wouldn't think of sticking around for so long; it was just that your resentment for me overpowered your real attitude." His explanation once again made perfect sense and far outstripped my abilities in the area of speechcraft. But most of all, he was right. I wouldn’t have stayed with him if I only resented him, I always respected his abilities I was just shadowed by my personal ideas about how one usually treats power.

"Tatsu, by comparison, was quite the easy conundrum. I just needed to confirm her suspicions about me and make no reason to doubt it. I did that when I manipulated her elemental spears and then blocked her Light Hammer and used some of my power to push her back and prove that I was as overwhelmingly powerful as she suspected. I then made sure that she wouldn't be hurt by the force of my power and I caught her mid-air, and then I walked her back here to recover from my method of proving her suspicions.

I then remembered what she had said before falling unconscious and I was determined to see if he knew what she was talking about. I asked him if he knew what "Night's Edge" was. He gave a chuckle before turning to me with a smirk on his face and then drew his sword as if that answered the question. When I still looked at him with a questioning look, he looked slightly disappointed in me before telling me it was the name of his sword. I looked it over and then asked if I could examine it. He obliged and handed it over with the usual warning one gives when handing over a sharp object. “Watch the edge.”

Immediately upon grabbing the hilt I felt that it was perfectly balanced and it didn’t feel like I had picked up anything at all, of course, I felt the weight, but as I moved it through the air, it felt like I was just swinging with air. Upon examination, I saw that it was a beautiful blade. In practicality terms, it was a double-edged straight sword, it was barbed for about 4 inches up from the handguard, and it had a simple grip in a material that I didn't recognize, Zavros noticed my confusion and said that the material was his personal variation of a metal he called Arkanium. It was a beautiful, shiny black color, except it didn't look very practical. I felt that it would slip out of his hand whenever he swung it. However, upon that thought, it’s feel shifted to that of fine leather that was designed for grip and not slipping even when coated in blood. I released my grip, and it looked no different than before, and it defied explanation. I turned to Zavros for an explanation, and he explained that on its own, Arkanium wasn't very useful, but it's unique in the fact that if the one who obtained it from the raw ore was skilled enough, he could manipulate it to do practically anything, within reason of course.

He said that he had implemented three main useful abilities over the time he had been in the game. I asked what some of these were, and he seemed happy that someone else appreciated the work that went into his sword, and so he was glad to tell me about it. He explained the first ability with a question. He asked if I saw any imperfections in the sword. Seeing none I looked up and him, and he was standing up with a second blade that seemed to appear from thin air, and I was determined to figure out the full extent of his abilities before we were out of here. He then told me to swing at him, and he would block the swings. I was curious about why this was necessary, but I knew that eventually, he would explain, so I did as he asked. 

I began to swing at him and true to his word he blocked every swing with an iron grip and with every swing he encouraged me to swing even harder and harder I did swing. After a couple of minutes of swinging, I was certain that the next swing would break one of our blades, but neither showed any sign of breaking. After a few more minutes he called stop and told me to look at the blade; as expected from the force we were exerting on it, it had nicks and scratches all over it from the blades crossing. I was about to ask what the point of this was but he just told me to observe the blade. I almost yelped in alarm as his sword began to repair itself and within 10 seconds it was back to perfection. It was then I saw what the first ability was. His sword could repair itself. The second ability he then demonstrated by telling me to prepare whatever strength magic attack I desired as long as it wasn’t too large. _“So, Thunderbird, how do you think I should do this?”_  
_**“Well, I can assist you with Lightning but nothing else, so would you like me to instruct you on how to create an attack you already know?”**_  
_“*sigh* No, but can you tell me the process for creating one exceptionally powerful magic sphere?”_  
_**“Sure, just create one of your regular spheres but just keep pumping magic into it until you feel it begin to turn unstable and then stop. The formula that I give you will allow you to store far more power than you will usually be able to at the expense of more time to create multiple. Over time it will take you less time because it will eventually become subconscious and you will be able to form several at the same time.”**_  
_“Cool. Could you help me a little bit and I will follow your lead in how to keep supplying magic into an already formed sphere, and I will take it from there.”_  
_**“Sure”**_  
It was surprisingly easy to do, but the Thunderbird was right in that it took much longer than usual to form and it drained my reserves a good amount before it began to break down. When it had reached its limit, I threw it at Zavros and waited to see what would happen. Once again time began to slow down as Zavros swung at the sphere just as it entered his range and as soon as it hit the sphere, the sword glowed black and the sphere dissipated into thin air but I suspected that this wasn’t the case, it would be too obvious, and it wouldn’t explain why his sword glowed black. I just watched as time sped back up and he held his sword in a casual position waiting for me to provide my theory on what had happened. “Well, I suppose it would be too simple for it to have simply dissipated it.”  
“Correct, so, what do you think happened.”  
“I have no idea, I can’t quite think of where it could’ve gone except for into thin air. However, you seem to have a new surprise waiting for us everytime we do something, so it can’t be that simple.”  
“Right you are, I actually absorbed all the magic stored in it, and as it passed through my sword, it turned back into base Magicka for storage purposes.”  
“But where did you store it?”  
“Oh, I stored it in the pommel stone of my sword.”  
“And the stone just happens to have that capability does it?”  
“No, I forged it when I made my sword, and it modified my sword to have the ability to absorb and steal magicka from whatever it hits.”  
“If your entire existence weren't one impossibility after the next, I would probably step backwards and dramatically exclaim how that was complete bullshit and overpowered beyond belief.”  
Zavros gave a deep, hearty laugh at that observation as he just looked like he realized that fact for himself and found it incredibly amusing.  
“Yeah, I really get that sort of response a lot. People often find that people who are more powerful than them have overblown powers that they can’t believe or are straight up abusing or cheating the mechanics of magic before even considering the possibility that with enough dedication they could be standing in my position or even surpass me.”  
The conversation ended there with him giving magical advice and guidance and with me just looking back upon my magical power vs. his and finding that the only major thing stopping me from being on equal grounds to him is just experience essentially. 

We then just went back to Tatsu and sat down next to her on better terms than we were before and I had my answer to what Night’s Edge was. And while I didn’t have the time to ask him about much else as we fell into silence waiting for Tatsu to wake up I was still given enough to be satisfied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But truly, I don't want to leave you guys without a chapter for too long and I truly don't have that good of an excuse beyond my school and education which I couldn't give less of a damn about and neither do my teachers, the human need for food, and sleep which I pretty much ignore anyways, so I have to just kinda blame this almost late chapter on laziness and the pain of having put in the HTML codes for italics and bold. Also trying to successfully eagle-search the chapter for continuity errors and not make Zavros seem like an all-powerful force who should've given up on my merry band of idiots long ago and tried to kick Genysis' ass himself (which he would fail at currently). Soooooo, in conclusion,
> 
> I am ever so sorry for the lateness and I hope my story has so far entertained you guys and I hope you continue reading it as I continue to write it. If you have any comments or suggestions, please voice them, I(unfortunatly) do not have the ability to percieve my readers ideas through technology. COMMENCE END SENTENCE!
> 
> As always, enjoy my stories, live your lives and remember that a man chooses, a slave obeys because the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. After all, we're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.


	5. The Walk, And Magic Contests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HO HO Holy shit, I hope you guys aren't angry about this chapter joining all the others in the category of later than I promised. I just kinda wanted a chapter to come out on Christmas as my present to any readers that actually enjoy my story. I knew I couldn't get out two good chapters in a month especially with finals preparation and other holiday shit I had to do. So, here is the chapter, I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Also, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannakah, and whatever else happens this time of year. Maybe Happy Snow? Merry end of the year? Goodbye 2017?

Alxerczo's POV

With his explanation over with there wasn’t much to do except wait for Tatsu to wake up and the 5 commanders to arrive. This time didn’t leave much to do except think, and there were several questions I had, but they weren't important enough to ask at the moment except for one.  
“What caused Tatsu to fall unconscious?”  
He opened his eyes and looked over at me before addressing my question, 

“I knew she would try and attack me to try catching me off guard but I didn’t expect her to conjure a hammer to hit me with, and thus when I absorbed the magic from her hammer, the effect traveled through her and reached her magical core which drained her of all the magic she has within her body and no magician is supposed to reach that point without passing out before it can happen, so her body sent her into a magical slumber to recover her magic. As for for the reason she was thrown back, to answer your next question, I am not quite sure why it happened, but I think that when I hit her hammer, The force I put into stopping it transferred through it and hit her full force with nothing to stop her because the hammer had been absorbed by that point.”

“Perfectly reasonable as always, but how long will it be until she wakes up or to put it in more precise terms, how long until her magic has recovered?”

“I am not quite sure as I’ve never really had to deal with this before. It could be minutes or hours, but I’m sure she won’t be out for more than a day.”

With my curiosity satisfied I leaned back against the wall and began to look out into the endless horizon for a period of time until the commanders arrive. I didn’t have to wait long, and I stood up and went over to them to brief them on the situation with Tatsu while Zavros remained leaned against the wall next to her.

-1 hour later-

I had been thinking, and I wanted Zavros’ input on the matter before trying it. I walked back over, and before I could even ask my question, he interrupted me without even opening his eyes.  
“You want to try and give her some of your magical power to wake her up quicker. Don’t you.”  
“How did you know that? Do you have mind-reading capabilities that we don’t know about?”  
“No, I simply have an idea of how you think about things and the answer is that it’s possible to do it but dangerous to most because in her unconscious state she won’t be able to regulate how much she takes from you and could send you into a similar sleep while waking her up. Only people who have worked together for an extended period of time and have shared magic before can safely, and without danger wake up the other from such a sleep. Also, to answer if I could do it without danger, the answer is no because while she doesn’t have the magical capacity to store much of my power, it wouldn’t matter if she absorbs too fast and overflows, hurting herself.”

“But it’s possible to do it. What if we do it together? I start it and if you feel her try to absorb too much of my power you start feeding her yours.”

“We could try that. That has the highest possibility of success.”

I sat on Tatsu’s other side and began the process for deep diving into my magical reserves. I saw Zavros do the same but at a much quicker pace, taking only a second or two to bring his magic to the surface and create the necessary channels. I breached through the veil at the back of my mind and allowed magic to flow through my body, almost overwhelming me before I subdued it and then willed it to flow through my body into my right hand. I then carefully placed my hand over Tatsu's and allowed some magic through into her body, waiting for her to start absorbing it. It didn’t take long, and I felt her core begin eating at my magical reserves at a rapid pace, almost ravenous in its speed. I then realized what Zavros meant when he said that it was dangerous to do this without practice, I could feel that the more magic I fed her core, the faster it ate it away, and if I reduced the flow, it would suck more magic out of me without remorse. I could feel my magic reaching the halfway point after barely any time had passed in my mind, while in reality, it had been a couple of minutes since I had started but nonetheless I began to become a bit worried as I waited for Zavros to begin feeding in his magic and stop Tatsu from potentially totally draining my reserves.

Zavros' POV

I was curious just how these two people could trust each other so thoroughly and how Alxerczo could without fear put himself in danger to wake Tatsu up. I was monitoring their reserves, and I was concerned about how far I should let Alxerczo go because Tatsu’s reserves were greater than I anticipated and I would have to step in sooner than I thought to prevent Alxerczo from being drained. When strain started showing on Alxerczo’s face and his reserves hit halfway, I placed my hand over Tatsu’s and allowed my magic to flow through her, and I felt an immediate response from her core as it abandoned Alxerczo in light of absorbing my far more potent energy and more abundant supply to draw from. I opened my eyes to see Alxerczo fall upon his backside as he felt his magic no longer being drawn upon and simultaneously feeling a trace of my pure magic. I knew he had felt my magic because for a brief second before he disconnected, his magic began to draw upon me as well before he recoiled from it. I mentally cursed myself for allowing this because he would’ve never felt something like it before and would want to know what it was.  
When I redirected my full attention to Tatsu I found her core had calmed down significantly and was no longer greedily eating away at my magic, it was taking it at a far more reasonable pace and within 20 seconds had taken its fill. When I felt her core become full and content, I removed my hand and retracted my magic back into myself and then placed my hand upon my sword’s pommel stone and stored the excess I had drawn from myself in it. I then once again leaned back against the wall and waited for Tatsu to wake up.

Tatsu's POV 

I was asleep, that much I knew. How was a different matter. I remember dueling Zavros, being tossed across the field and muttering something to Alxerczo before falling asleep. As I contemplated how I fell asleep, I began to feel something happening. It could only be described as a feeling of energy, as if liquid caffeine was being injected into my veins. At first, it was slow and felt as if my body were rejecting it in a sense but still took it in, and it was slightly worrying and concerning because I had no idea what was happening. However, before it became too severe, it ended in favor of a much better feeling source of energy. This energy was far more subdued, I would describe it, and it was exceptionally calming. It could only be described as the feeling of a warm hug, and my body seemed to take it in willingly. It ended after an unknown period of time, and I could feel myself beginning to wake up, and I used the time I had left to think of every possible scenario for what happened and what that feeling was.

When I regained full consciousness I kept my eyes closed for a moment and wished I could sleep a bit longer but when I eventually opened my eyes I looked around to establish my surroundings, and I saw that Zavros was sitting next to me watching and waiting for me to wake up. Zavros was his usual calm and indifferent self, sitting almost unsettling still, and I saw the complete opposite in Alxerczo, he looked nervous and was pacing a good 10 feet away with the Commanders that must've arrived while I was sleeping. I decided to savour the moment and laid my head back again and waited for them to notice I had woken up. I must admit that I didn't mind waking up next to Zavros, I felt safe, I just had an instinctive feeling that I knew he wouldn't let anything happen to me. Like with him at my side, nothing could ever harm me.

My thoughts stopped there when Zavros' voice cut through my consciousness. He quietly asked, not allowing the others to hear, how much longer I was going to pretend to still be asleep. I then looked at him and opened my eyes to see him staring at me, waiting for an answer. I asked him what happened to me. 

He sighed and told me everything he had told Alxerczo, including the details of his sword. I then realized what happened and what I had muttered to Alxerczo. I had said the name of his sword. His sword was legendary and wasn't even thought to exist. I tried to use some magic to get back at him, some harmless prank like pushing him over with force but I met a wall when I sought to access my magic. The usual veil that protected my magic was replaced with an impenetrable wall. I had no idea how he knew, but he told me not to bother trying to access my magic, I had lost it so fast that my core went into a panic and sealed itself off until it had determined I was safe. 

He said that it should relax on the way to wherever it was the blood trail led us.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me up to my feet. I immediately felt myself begin to blush and I jerked my hand away from him and told him I could've got up on my own. He just raised an eyebrow at me as if I were a strange curiosity that he had to decipher, but it still held the feeling of calm that was always present in him. I just looked down and shuffled my feet under his gaze, waiting for him to glean his answer from the top of my head. Eventually, I heard him sigh and looked up and saw him just looking off to the side in slight exasperation at whatever I was doing. However, it disappeared in but a second and then he just extended his arm in the direction of Alxerczo and the Commanders as if inviting me along to follow him over. I just began to walk forwards and sensed him following me a foot or so back. It was only a few steps before Alxerczo noticed me and walked over to me in concern but seemed calmer now that I was awake and walking. He knew that I wasn’t up for many questions, so he quietly said that he was glad I had woken up and asked how I was feeling. I replied that I was feeling fine, almost better than ever before. I looked and addressed the commanders before we set off. However, they seemed more concerned with asking a literal cacophony of questions that I had no desire to answer. Luckily, Zavros stood next to me and shooed away any questions they asked and began to bring us to realize the bigger picture of the blood trail and that I would do better without them all hounding me with questions. 

They surprisingly backed off immediately, and I wasn't sure if it was out of respect or fear that they listened to him so quickly. With that over, we set off and after a few minutes Alxerczo began a small conversation with me that wasn’t too thought-intensive, and he was very considerate in any further questions about how I was doing. Instead of being overly kind and coddling me with his questions, he kept it to simple things like what it was like fighting him and how it felt while I was asleep.

For the first question we both agreed that there was no point trying something like that again, we had both learned what we needed to put trust in him for the foreseeable future. Alxerczo shared how when dueling with him, no matter how fast he swung, Zavros had his sword placed in the perfect position to deflect or block him without visible movement. He also said that one of the most prominent things he noticed was that even if he swung with both hands as hard as he could, Zavros could stop it in its tracks with only one hand and just the muscles in his wrist. He said that he would probably have better luck smashing down a brick wall with a squeaky hammer. However, we both agreed that from what we know, his strength should be physically impossible. We tried consulting the Thunderbird, but it didn’t have much helpful input on the matter. All it said was that the legends of him stated that he had seemingly superhuman capabilities. It did say that most myths are 80% exaggeration, but that still left 20% truth. It was entirely possible that Zavros had somehow pushed his body past his limits or maybe he just had some secret swordsmanship technique that made it easier to block and deflect sword strikes. 

I then began to consult with Alxerczo about a probably utterly insane theory. I said that there may be a reason why Zavros outright evaded the spear I had thrown that had the light element. I said that while it may be a coincidence but maybe the light hurts him more than regular. Also how Zavros is far faster and stronger than anyone we had ever met. Except for one. Blacklure. I said that, while completely insane and probably wrong, it couldn’t be a coincidence that the only thing that we had seen that could even compare to Zavros was a Daedric Lord. The similarities between them were too many to outright throw out the theory. After a few seconds of considering we brought up our experience in other MMO type games. We had both played video games and seen animes where the overpowered friend turns out to be our enemy at the last minute. However, we both just dismissed the idea, but it didn’t leave our minds for a long while. We both agreed that if that theory came to pass, then we were all completely and irrevocably screwed, so there was no point worrying about it.

After a period of silence we broached the second question he had posed to me. I said that it felt very strange. I explained that when I was asleep, I had no concept of time, for all I knew I could’ve been asleep for 15 minutes or 15,000 years. He almost couldn’t believe the notion but then invited me to continue because he realized that it would be impossible to conceptualize without experiencing it. I explained further that after what was for me an unknown period of time, I felt an experience similar to exceptional amounts of caffeine. I explained how weird it felt and then how while my body accepted the energy it did so almost greedily and reluctantly. He explained that it was likely what I had felt was his energy flowing through me in his effort to wake me up. He said that he didn’t feel any hesitation from me, only the greed and no small amount of excitement. I gave a small apology to him about that. He just waved it off and said it wasn’t my fault, I was unconscious and had no control over my core. After that I tried to explain the second feeling I encountered after his ended. I failed to find words to properly explain it, I could already feel myself forgetting what it felt like, it was like waking up from a dream, you can only remember it for a few minutes when you wake up. I expressed this to Alxerczo and he said that they would ask Zavros about it later as it was his energy that caused the second feeling. 

Following that an oppressive silence fell over the group that confused both me and Alxerczo because it was so much different from the silence we were used to when approaching possible danger. When walking with Zavros there was no fear of what we would find, no distrust in our teammates. We couldn’t explain what was causing the oppressiveness of the silence that surrounds us. It followed us all the way through the walk to wherever the blood trail led. The walk wasn’t long but it seemed longer than it really was because as the minutes passed we became more and more worried and concerned because the blood trail never faltered, it was as if it were a constant flow of blood that came from whatever it was and from wherever we were going. Everyone present agreed that it was nearly impossible for any known being to bleed this steadily and for this long without either passing out from blood loss or the wound clotting, of which neither had happened as far as we can see. The one thing we did notice was that every few feet the trail got thick in one spot, then quickly thinned out before thickening again. It was strange, and we couldn’t find a logical explanation for it except that whoever was bleeding had such a fast healing rate that the instant the wound is made, it clots, and the person had to every few feet remake the wound to continue the trail. This scenario made no sense because no known thing can heal even remotely that fast. So we were presented with two impossibilities from this mystery being that is leading us somewhere probably dangerous. Zavros was characteristically quiet and stoic, I fell in step with him hoping that his aura would help calm me down by proximity. Surprisingly it actually worked and within a couple more minutes I had regained my confidence and some of the oppressiveness fell away as we slowly reached the top of the hill we were climbing. On top of the peak we looked down and saw our destination in front of us and we were rightly concerned over what we might inside. Of the 5 commanders we brought, only 3 of them came down the hill with us. The two that stayed behind said that if we wanted to invoke the wrath of the dead then we were welcome to do so.

We began down the hill and progress was quite slow because the hill was quite high and the crypts were in a valley. However, I didn’t pay all that much attention to how long it seemed for me because I knew that it must be torture for Zavros to have to reign in his speed to keep up with the rest of us. He of course never complained or even just said screw it and ran off ahead of us. He just walked alongside us as if nothing in the entire world concerned him and it was a good thing to see because If he wasn’t concerned then neither should we. However, on the same thought, if he was concerned then we would almost certainly die from whatever was dangerous enough to worry him. Mamy more minutes passed, and we were about 3/4ths of the way down the hill, and I could see that Zavros was slowly getting irritated by how slow the descent was. It all came to an end when all of the sudden a large gust of wind blew past me and I looked around to see no obvious cause of it except all of the irritation that Zavros was showing had disappeared. I leaned over and whispered to him a simple question before leaning back. “How many times did you run in circles around the crypt to alleviate your irritation?” I didn’t have to wait long for an answer and it was by no means discreet. I felt another gust of wind and looked up to see the number 5 etched in the grass as if something had burned the letters into the ground. I gave a small laugh that Zavros shared with me. We then got into a friendly competition of magic to see who could create the most extravagant magic display without the others noticing what we were doing.

I started by attaching two magic lights to the back of Alxerczo’s boots. He followed up by creating magic letters out of fire on the back of Alxerczo’s armor that said Kick Me. We both had to stifle our laughter at that one and I had to think for a few minutes to find some sort of display that would have Zavros at a loss to outdo. I decided to place a small magic circle on the balls of each of our companions feet that when activated would create a small platform, effectively tripping everyone at the same time. While a strange coincidence, it wasn’t something outright suspect. Zavros gave a mischievous smirk as he prepared his next trick. I could immediately tell that this was going to be something extravagant that I would have no hope of matching, let alone surpassing. My first clue was the smirk, which promised a display not usually seen. Secondly, he actually formed magic circles to regulate his power and make it more precise. Whether that was so that the commanders and Alxerczo wouldn’t detect the power build-up or if he actually needed the circles to amplify and direct his magic i didn’t know. The circles were only visible for a second and then when they disappeared I heard a sound on the edge of my hearing, I wouldn’t have even noticed it if I weren’t devoting all my senses to study what he was doing. I looked at him and he discreetly directed me to stand still and look up at the mountain peaks. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He had somehow managed to carve a perfect recreation of my face into the mountain peaks. The best bit was that if I even moved a foot, the image fell apart and was unrecognizable. It appeared to just be a strange erosion pattern. I turned to him and just smiled while quietly golf-clapping at his creativity. I then acknowledged that he had won the contest as we had reached the bottom of the hill and I couldn't think of something that could possibly top that.

We briefly considered a small reward for his win, but it was quickly silenced when we got within 50 feet of the crypts. I couldn’t describe the cause of the feeling if I wanted to, it was just an irrational feeling to turn in the opposite direction and return to wherever I had come from. It just held a feeling that something immensely powerful lurked in the crypts and we would not survive an encounter with it. Zavros walked up beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder, giving it a light squeeze in reassurement that it would all be fine, that there was nothing in the world that could harm me if he was there by my side. I breathed in and out a couple of times and then we walked forward to catch up to the group with a confidence that we had no right having. However, despite the confidence, none of us were quite ready for what we found at the entrance of the crypts and what lay beyond it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, This took far less time than you probably thought it did. I have been sitting on the first 3000 or so words since about a week and a half after the last chapter came to air. I have just been dragging my heels trying to think of ways to modify sections to fit the new canon while keeping the same basic storyline as initially written.
> 
> I say this because, for those of you who don't know, I started writing this about two years ago as a school project and I just kept going with it until about June of this year. That was when I read back the story I had written and realized that it absolutely sucked massive dicks and I had made so many mistakes when writing it that I scrapped pretty much the entire first chapter, re-wrote it and somehow made Zavros to be an absolute asshole and an all-around arrogant dick who was very entitled and confident in his abilities so far as to take it to supervillain levels of maybe being seen saying lines like, "You can't beat me! I have infinite power!" and when he is thwarted he escapes with a shout of "Impossible!".  
> SO I scrapped that chapter too and wrote the first chapter of this story, and I liked it, so I kept writing it and began posting it here because fanfiction.net is a pain in the ass to post to when you write your stories in Google Drive apparently. And Wattpad is filled with mostly childish attempts at stories and has a habit of deleting portions of stories when trying to post them. Just cause, if you want to read where this story started out, you could search it up on Wattpad, but I will warn you, it was ahead of this story, and will have some spoilers regarding what happens in the Crypts. It's poorly written though, so maybe next chapter will be different enough, or I may just scrap the way the chapter went if I don't like it or my writing demands it, or I get some inspiration or a side-road I can work from a book I'm reading or another fanfiction I find or even a TV show or movie. I literally have no idea where this story is going to end up, I mean I have events that are going to transpire over the story, but that's about it. Maybe these chapters will end up in the recycling cycle, and they will be picked at by future me's bloodhoundish copy and paste tool to write an even better story or even a side-story or something.
> 
> ANYWAY! I have written far too much for an endnote but that's just how I work, I over explain things and go into side-stories about my side-stories.
> 
> So, If you have any comments or suggestions, please voice them, I do not have the ability to perceive my reader's ideas through technology. COMMENCE END SENTENCE!
> 
> As always, enjoy my stories, live your lives and remember that a man chooses, a slave obeys because the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. After all, we're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.


	6. The Crypt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left our intrepid heroes, they were advancing upon a scary crypt from which a blood trail leads. Perhaps we should check back up on them. It has been a while after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UH.  
> Hi.  
> Yeah, I'm not dead. And thus I am sorry for you guys (However many that is) not having a chapter or a word from me since "Nondescript Winter Holiday".
> 
> Get that reference? That is a minor part of why you guys didn't have a chapter. The entire explanation will be at the end note.
> 
> However, It's not all bad. As compensation for my absence, I have made this chapter the longest chapter so far. I will also be performing seppuku until I get my shit together.

Alxerczo’s POV

As we were walking down the hill, we got a good look at what kind of situation we were dealing with, and while it didn’t seem too bad, that didn’t mean anything about what was inside the crypts. While I also had heard the stories of the dead walking the crypts, I didn’t quite believe it because if there indeed were dead enemies, then I wasn’t sure what we could do about them because they are already dead, how could we kill them again? I could only think that we would have to reduce their entire bodies to ashes or something along those lines. Not know was frustrating because I was a paladin dammit! I should know how to deal with the undead; it was quite literally in the job description. I was sure that Zavros would have some ultra-badass-secret-power bullshit that would destroy the undead with a touch or some other equally simple action. I’d ask him to teach me some techniques but I still, despite how he explained things before, thought that he’d either help me but do so in a condescending way or not teach me and make me feel stupid for not knowing how to use my primary form of magic. However, I would later realize that we had only been in the game for a few weeks and would expect not knowing how to use our magic. Regardless, we had reached the bottom of the hill, and all attention was focused on what the obscure feeling to run so very far away from the crypt was and where it was coming from. Zavros marched forwards, and I’ll be damned if He shows me up and I followed him, then Tatsu followed me, and the commanders followed us towards the crypt.

 

Every step felt like a mile, every second an hour, every shadow hid an unseen danger, that was what it felt like trying to walk calmly and ignore the constant feeling of danger that permeated the very air around us. The feeling mentally exhausted each of us with the strain it put our minds under trying to focus on the smallest detail to keep us alive from whatever was causing the feeling of danger that infected every blade of grass we walked upon.

 

It was at its worst at the crypt door, and then it suddenly disappeared, and the silence and solitude we found ourselves in was even more unsettling than when we were weighed down by danger. It was even worse by the door we were greeted with. To say it was creepy would be an understatement. The aura around the door was one of silence and death. It seemed to suck in all light and hope that was around it. Its design didn’t help much either. At first, it appeared to be a simple stone door with a skull design on it, but the more we looked at it, more of the finer details we saw. Foremost was that the skull design was made of bone that had been merely weathered down and off coloured. Second, we say a faded black hand design on the forehead of the skull. We began to approach it but then jumped back when it spoke to us, and we felt the magical aura that was in its material.

 

It spoke in the form of a question. “What is the music of life?” In a quiet, almost whispered voice. The question was a bit confusing. But not impossible. However, before any of us could attempt to answer it, Zavros spoke up. “Well, of all the places to find one.” We looked at him in confusion and then implored him to explain. He answers thus,

 

“It’s called a Dark Door. If a magician becomes powerful enough, they can enchant objects with magic to create an effect such as a door locked with a passphrase known only to the creator of the door that can then be pass through word of mouth to others. They are almost indestructible and cannot be tampered with to try and get the password. They are exceptionally secure because, the creator of the door can have the passphrase be something completely unrelated to the question, such as having the door asking, “What is the color of the sky?” and have the answer be “Cheese Puffs.” or “Sword” or even “BlechSavat.”

 

“Now, you may be thinking why we are still standing here and not giving up. The answer is that I know we can figure out the answer to the door’s question. I know this because the design on the door tells me who built the door. The ones who built the door are called the Blood Collaboration. They are an assassin’s guild, and that means that the answer to the question is likely some sort of edgy, dark, or assassination-related thing.”

 

We found this answer strange that he would know this and I inquired about how he knew about these doors. He smiled and said that he had dealt with this guild before. When asked for an example of another question and answer he had found, he said, “What is life’s great illusion?” the answer being “Innocence, my brother.”

We all nodded as we understood what kind of thing we were looking for.

After that was done with, we began thinking up possible passphrases. However, no matter what we tried, none of us could find the correct answer. We all tried several answers, all of us, except for one. Zavros just stood there in deep concentration, and we were unsure what he was doing.

 

After over half an hour had passed and Zavros hasn’t moved an inch from where he stood, and the rest of us had given up trying to think of a passphrase, he walked towards the door with a strange look upon his face. When he approached the door and was presented the question, he answered, “Silence, my brother” and for a brief second nothing happened, but then the door responded with, “Welcome home.” and opened.

 

We all stood up and began walking through the door, but I lagged behind to ask Zavros a question. “Did it really take you this long to find the answer, or was this another small test?” He gave a small nod and said that he knew the answer as soon as it was asked because whoever created the door had left it on the default question. He then walked through the door and began looking around the first chamber with the commanders and Tatsu.

 

Tatsu’s POV

 

The crypt looked almost exactly what we expected with cobwebs, dust and ancient linen wraps scattered about the place. I dare say it looked cryptic. Ha! Pun! However, any joking nature I had left was abandoned upon seeing all the empty sarcophagi and all of the, well, the dead dead. While that sounds strange, the dead were dead. Upon the floor, leaking embalming fluid and whatever’s left of their flesh. It smelled horrible, and I was surprised no one threw up from it. We were obviously scared and concerned but relieved by the fact they are already dead, which lead to more fear of what killed all the dead and what even could. There was, however, supposed to be an element one can use to essentially burn the dead and kill them quickly. The only other option is to destroy the one who raised them which could be a problem if the one who raised them died and tied their necromantic creations into a curse that awakens whenever they are disturbed.

 

However, it doesn’t look either of those things happened; it just looked like they were killed by blades. That was even more unsettling. But I wasn’t particularly worried because I could see that Zavros was already on the case. He was knelt down next to one of the corpse corpses. Ugh, this is getting old, I’m just going to call them as if they weren't dead and died again. ANYWAY! Zavros was looking over a corpse and seemed to have found nothing not immediately apparent but knowing Zavros, he had something up his sleeve and he did. He stood up, placed his hands over the corpse and began speaking in an odd language that none of us understood.

 

“Izg, Zavros Hellstrand, urdan latob frum kraat u rau kibum. Nagraufrom nalt!”

 

This was followed by the body inexplicably rising back up, seemingly with new life. This was of course followed by all of us drawing our weapons. Except for Zavros. Of course. He just extended his arm to the side, and we all stopped but didn’t sheathe our weapons. We were understandably wary of what Zavros had done, but it slowly faded when we began looking at the previously dead being. It wasn’t exactly alive, the closest thing I could think of was undead. It looked around at its surroundings before looking at Zavros and bowing to him. “It is an honor to be granted this new life, even if it is only temporary… So, what would you require of me?”

 

“I have but a simple request of you, I wish to ask you a few questions.”

 

Our new undead friend gestured for him to continue.

 

“First off, I wish to know who or what killed you and your brethren.”

 

“Ah. That. Well, we were killed by a rather large hoard of demonic beings that could’ve only been here for one thing. The Eye of Orcris.”

“What is this Eye of Orcris?”

“It is a great magical artifact that has a long history behind it, but simply put it is a large orb that contains a nearly never-ending magical supply, and due to its age the magic contained within it is very potent, you can obviously see why these demons would want it.”

 

“Thank you for your time and service, I will now grant you and your fallen brethren the complete burial that you deserve.”

“Innumerable thanks from all of us.”

 

And thus Casper the friendly corpse then fell back to the ground, and Zavros started using some magic, and the bodies began to be placed back into their spots by telekinesis and their post-embalmed wounds to be sealed. All in all, we were observing him carefully to try and improve our own magic, but due to him not needing magic circles for this, we were just treated to an impressive display of power that, at the risk of running the sentence tired, his place above us all in skill. I mean seriously, I’ve said that sentence so much in my mind and I’m sure Alxerczo has said it a fair number of times as well. But no matter how many times it’s said, it’s no less accurate.

 

After Zavros had re-laid all the corpses to rest, we then advanced further through the crypt without much fear of meeting any unfriendly undead due to Zavros’ generous display of magic. In fact, if there were any undead still roaming, I’m sure they would let us pass without much trouble, but we all refrained from touching any more than was necessary as we went through the halls.

 

The place wasn’t unusually large, but it seemed longer than it was due to the twisting and turning nature of the halls, and our sense of direction told us we were moving backwards almost as much as forwards. When asked about this, Zavros said that it was likely built as a defensive measure to exhaust attackers and to buy time for any people to escape. Before we could ask why that was necessary for a crypt, he said that it was likely, due to the geographical placement, that before this was a crypt, it was an outpost or base of some kind.

 

Overall, the place was fascinating, and I knew that, if we had more time, we would be stopping often to look at all the ancient and beautiful things we could see. But alas, we were on a mission and couldn’t afford such luxuries. Also, we found a large room with a curious opening and circular platform with runes and other magical symbols on it. So, that kind of stopped all need to look for more interesting things because we had found it.

 

Being the most magically literate of us, except Zavros of course, I was the one who looked at the runes to try and decipher the purpose of them.

“So Tatsu, what do you think?” asked one of the commanders, while another was looking at Zavros to see what he does or any clues from any vague facial expressions.

“The arrangement is very curious but I think I know what the purpose is and it is worrying,” I responded as I stood back up from my crouched position by the platform.

“I believe this was, emphasis on was, where the Eye of Orcris sat.” I then began to point at various symbols as I explained further, “These runes are forming a shield charm to protect the Eye and then these runes are supplying the power, but they are drawing their power from within the platform and assumedly from the Eye when it was here.” “Right Zavros?”

 

He looked, in his own subtle way, proud of my assessment of it. He then walked forwards and proceeded to fill in any additional information he might find.

“You are correct in your assessment, but I’m unsure in you understand the power that these runes have and some of the runes that you missed.”

“First of all, the runes you missed are perhaps the most important ones here. Power amplification runes. Completely inefficient in combat, but when put into a dedicated defense with time, they can make a small amount of magical power able to sustain a barrier powerful enough to stop nearly anything.” He then began to gather some power above his hand in a globe. “Let me demonstrate” “Can you all detect how much power I’ve put into this orb?” We all nodded in affirmation. “Good, now, if I were to put this into a barrier, how much power would this be able to stop?” Alxerczo answered, “Equal to the amount you put in.” Zavros nodded but then continued, “Yes that is true, but not the answer I was looking for. I want to know how much damage this theoretical shield would withstand. Say I have a powerful shield, would that be able to stop mountain destroying power or small crater destroying?” He then asked the question again, “How much power would this be able to stop?” We then took time to think about it and finally one of us answered. “It would only be able to stop enough power to cause a small crater.” Zavros then sent his energy orb to the center of the platform and allowed the runes to activate. Then, once a barrier was up, he asked us, “What about now?” We felt the strength of the barrier, and it had enough power in it to stop almost anything we could throw at it. And to further emphasise his point, he conjured a lightning bolt powerful enough to blow a hole in a mountain and threw it at the shield, where the shield simply held strong. If the barrier itself wasn’t enough, the attack was enough for us to understand just how powerful these runes could be. However, one commander asked why we couldn’t use them in combat, which was, of course, answered with all the needed condescending nature necessary of such an answer. Zavros held his hand back up again, and the rune formed above it. This was followed by a quick question to the one who asked the question. “How much time are you typically given in combat to form a circle?” Which caused the one who asked the question to realize why it can’t be used in combat and he suddenly found the floor to be a fascinating sight. He did, nonetheless, answer the question in a bit meekly. “Only a split second.” Which caused Zavros to put his hand down and address all of us again.

“Exactly, a split second is all you have, and no magician should be taking the time trying to draw these runes into their spells because it wastes too much time. Time in which you would be dead from that fireball, you tried to block, and if you ever could do it fast enough, it is complicated enough that in the middle of combat you could easily mess up the rune and suddenly your shield, in the best case scenario is weakened, or deflects the attack. Worst case, causes your shield to explode.”

 

With that sorted, we were left with the infinite magic question. Where was this Eye of Orcris? As we had seen, a small amount of magic becomes a powerful barrier, so something as powerful as the Eye must’ve created an enormously strong barrier. So, how was the orb taken?

 

We all turned to Zavros. He was looking at the platform, but when we looked at him, he turned back to us and gave a sigh and said to us, “Just because I’m powerful doesn’t mean I’m Omni-knowledgeable.”

 

Now, I didn’t know what that word meant, but I could guess, and It wasn’t exactly reassuring for Zavros not to know something. Until however, I began to think of this as a game and used some logic. I looked up in slight excitement, and Zavros gave a small smile before addressing the other commanders. “I believe that Tatsu has an idea.”

 

I was met with the gaze of all the commanders, and it was slightly unsettling, and my idea came out a bit meek and quiet.

“I thought about it, and I think we can all agree that the Eye of Orcris sounds too powerful for any magician to use and remain sane. So, what if a secret magical organization took the orb away from the grasp of humanity until we were ready for it. The person Zavros resurrected had been dead for a long time, he wouldn’t know if it had been taken.”

 

Zavros smiles a bit more and addresses the rest of the commanders with what he thought.

“Quite logical Tatsu, very good.” We then began looking around the room and found what appeared to be a secret door.

 

Alxerczo’s POV

 

Throughout the conversation that occurred in the room, I was consulting the Thunderbird to get her opinion on some of the things Zavros was saying. First, on the matter of what kind of magic Zavros used to talk with the dead guy earlier.

 

_“So, Thunderbird, I have a couple questions I’d like to ask you.”_

**_“I’m sure you do. Very well. Ask away.”_ **

_“How did Zavros resurrect that guy earlier on?”_

**_“Necromancy. How else?”_ **

_“Yes, I thought of that, but it can’t be a simple matter to bring someone back to life like that.”_

**_“Well, in theory, yes, but in small events such as the one Zavros did, it’s mainly just an exchange of something and depending on who you resurrect, that exchange can be for many different things. Zavros just exchanged a straightforward thing, he gave the warrior and his comrades a release from whatever was keeping them as undead and restoring their positions in their burial. His side of the deal was he got information about whatever and the warrior was inclined to answer.”_ **

_“Fair enough. Next, what language was he speaking? I didn’t recognize it.”_

**_“That would be because its a language that hasn’t been used in quite some time. It isn’t even an official language. It is referred to as Shadow Speech, from the ancient domain of Cordor.”_ **

_“Cordor? The realm of Oauron from The King of the Rings?”_

**_“Yes. As for why that works as a necromancy language or how he knows it, that you would have to ask him yourself.”_ **

_“Also, I heard of a type of magic that is especially effective against undead, and I think it will be beneficial if I ever have to deal with them.”_

**_“Quite fortunately for you and slightly disappointing for me you couldn’t figure it out, the magic that is most effective against the undead is Light. Or more specifically, the Holy aspect of it.”_ **

I mentally facepalmed and just barely avoid actually facepalming before replying to the Thunderbird.

_“So, the magic that is most effective against undead and by the same logic, demons, just so happens to be the magic I specialize in.”_

**_“Yes. It would seem so.”_ **

_“Lastly, have you heard of the Eye of Orcris before?”_

**_“There are legends of it, and even by most people’s reckoning of time, it is ancient and thus powerful. Just in case you didn’t know, the older the magic, the more potent it is, that is why a God’s power is so overwhelming, it is literally several millennia old and from beings more powerful than most people can even imagine._ **

_“Is that why these magical artifacts so often corrupt or turn those who interact with them insane?”_

**_“Yes. That is why.”_ **

 

When I re-focused on what was occurring around me, I saw that everyone was looking in the direction of what appeared to be a secret door. I walked forwards, and through the door we went, them following my lead. The door opened up to a long tunnel and what looked like a drop off point at the end.

We got about half-way through the tunnel before the smell hit us. It was as if something had crawled up our noses and then promptly died there. It was horrible. It was thick and metallic, overwhelming and without question, it smelled entirely of death. It felt different from the corpses of the undead earlier on. These smelled… fresher, I guess.

We almost turned back, but we knew we had a duty to perform. To find what had killed whatever had been killed. We advanced through the remains of the tunnel and found ourselves on a ledge overlooking a chamber that was massive and impressive, but, what we were looking at on the floor took the center of attention.

 

To describe it as a slaughter would be putting it a bit bluntly. What we were looking at was without a doubt the most extensive scale killing any of us had ever seen in our lives and from what we could see, the variety of the deaths showed us that whatever had killed all of them had simply been toying with them. We jumped down and approached the first area of death. A guy at the bottom of the wall. In two pieces.

 

The first thing we noticed was that he was obviously not human. His skin was an ashy grey with seemingly red eyes and small horns at his temples. Altogether, if he had been alive, he would’ve been a very imposing and scary figure. He was even more unsettling in that he was covered in blood and from the pattern, it wasn’t his own. Ignoring the blood splatter, we realized that this must be what one of the typical demons look like. Then we returned to the most obvious thing about him, the fact he was in two pieces at the bottom of a wall.

  
  


Tatsu’s POV

 

Upon reaching the bottom of the wall and looking at the demon, it was actually Zavros who for once stood up and stated the absolute obvious, that the demon had been cut in half. Followed by a challenge to figure out how. We all observed the body and room even closer, and by this point, none of us were stupid enough to provide an idea without proper forethought and logic.

 

My observations provided that the cut appeared clean through the body and thus must’ve been cut very quickly as even the sharpest blade if moved slower than a faster than average sword swing will make imperfections and striations in the wound path. A quick look around and it appeared that the other commanders reached a similar conclusion, maybe not as detailed as mine, but the same essential idea.

 

Thus, I spoke up. “He was killed by a bladed weapon, most likely a sword due to probability. I believe this because it is likely that only a skilled swordsman could’ve swung fast enough and with enough accuracy to make such a clean cut, and it couldn’t have been a dagger because the wound is clean throughout the body and a dagger is too short to do that.”

 

Zavros tilted his head from side to side slightly as if contemplating the possibility for only a second before shaking his head no. “No, it wasn’t a sword, look at where the wound begins, it has a slight bowing inwards, suggesting a blunted weapon, not a sharp weapon such as a sword. Though your explanation was top notch.” I smiled and nodded before looking further.

 

It was only a minute before Alxerczo looked up and a small spark of understanding appeared in his eye.

“He was killed by the spike in the wall above us, it’s sharp enough to cause a cut but blunt enough that it wouldn’t immediately cut through skin like a blade, thus causing the bowing.”

We all looked up and saw the spike, and we all were a bit suspicious because the spike was easily about 15 feet above us. Zavros however, looked at it and the body before turning back to us nodding.

“Very good, you seem to be correct, it looks like it could make such a wound. However, we now encounter the problem we are all thinking, how he was killed by the spike that is 15 feet above us.”

None of us had an answer for that, and Zavros was either just as stumped as we were, which is as scary as everything around us, or he was just not telling us, which would be typical. Lacking any form of a real answer, we advanced to the next kind of slaughter, which we would later call the dozen line.

 

We looked upon it, and none of us could accurately describe what we were looking at, it was just a massive line with piles of obscure shapes of meat and weapons and shields on the ground in front of it. Alxerczo was the one who asked the question, “Just what the hell happened here.” Zavros then answered with a simple application of sarcasm, “They all went to play baseball.” Followed by a look that screamed of how he viewed the question, that is was incredibly stupid and to try harder.

 

Now, by this point, you can probably already tell that most people who interact with Zavros, except for Alxerczo and I, have one of two reactions. They either fear him enough to essentially obey anything he might say, or they resent him for his ability and attitude towards everything. Today one of the commanders revealed herself to be one of the latter and tried to test Zavros. You can figure out how that went. But for the benefit of those who can’t or don’t have enough imagination to, let's see what happens when someone tries to get snarky with the veritable demigod that is Zavros Hellstrand.

  


“Well if you're so smart, then how about you tell us what happened here.” She was quieted and with eye contact only strongly suggested to stand down if she didn’t wish to try and survive against what could be lightly described as the end for all those who don’t move aside. However, she wouldn’t be dissuaded from her path, and thus she was left to her fate.

“No, seriously, are none of the rest of you at least the slightest bit tired of his attitude of knowing the answer but constantly daring others to try and find the answer before correcting them?”

 

To describe the sound we heard next would be a task near impossible to accurately portray. It sounds as if the devil himself had risen and released the most unsettling bout of laughter he had upon us and that would probably give you the beginnings of an idea of how Zavros’ laugh sounded when he was met with the commander who challenged him to something that he would never be outperformed in. Intellect.

 

“You sure you want to do this miss?”

“Yes, I am, you always seem to have the answer to everything so explain everything that happened here.”

And thus it began.

 

“An unknown assailant made their way through these enemies as if they were chaff in the wind. First, they took out a hundred or so of the demons via various methods including cutting major blood vessels and slitting the throat followed by the act of laying them in spots along the wall. This can be seen due to their slightly more advanced state of decomposition, then when the demons realized they were under attack, they formed this line to try and stop them.

This was followed by the assailant killing every single one of them in less than a split second and separated every single one of them into exactly 12 pieces, cutting through skin, muscle and bone with greater ease than a hot knife through butter. This can be seen by the fact that every weapon and shield is in roughly the same place, indicating the speed, and the placement of the weapons and shields you can count the number of pieces there are and looking at the wounds there are no indications that the blade stopped at any point during the cuts even the slightest bit.

After that, one can assume from the speed at which this was performed that the other demons would be terrified of this embodiment of death that had started killing them all that they reverted to the most basic form of strategy, numbers. They all charged the assailant, and our death-dealer proved his speed once more by killing nearly all the others. This can be seen by the various piles of dead bodies scattered around the place with demons in at least two pieces. This didn’t continue for too long, and they reverted to a basic strategy of a shield circle to prevent any of the previous strategies from working again.

It is likely that our assailant then decided to prove his power and threw a number of demons into the air and enacted death upon them before they had hit the ground in many ways, a few of which consist of dragging down a spike in the wall, using momentum or just strength to rip the demons in two, and even just using gravity kill them, albeit probably with some magic to increase gravity to ensure the deaths.

This would logically be followed by a loose grouping of the remaining demons who would then receive the most extreme deaths of them all. Pressure. They would’ve been in their circle of supposed protection encircled by a shield comparable to the one I showed in the previous chamber, and that shield would’ve been slowly made smaller until all that was left of the demons would be a thick, reddish paste filled with metal. And you want to know where that paste went? Oh I’ll tell you, due to the pressure all that would’ve been under due to how small the shield would’ve been by that point, when the barrier turned off, the paste would explode outwards and coat the entire room in it, the walls, ceiling, and even the bodies of the demons already killed.”

  


He never raised his voice, and that must’ve made it worse for the commander. The fury of Hellstrand. And that was when I discovered why. Why this man who could’ve defeated this entire game and should’ve left us all to die long ago chose to stick around. He was being kind. He took the question he had been asked and wrapped it into the perfect explanation and threat to the one who bit the hand that helps us. For me, it showed me a new side of the man who I saw as the one who would save us all. Alxerczo considered himself lucky that he never dared to go against him. And the remaining two commanders who didn’t say anything? They were no longer questioning Zavros’ motives and if he was indeed here to help us. Leaving the commander who questioned Zavros. She wanted to stand against Zavros, so Zavros made sure she knew what that meant. And there wasn’t even a fight.

 

The commander stood down but with burning fury and fear burning in her eyes. I knew that she was wishing she were more powerful so that she could stand and fight Zavros but wisely knew that she wouldn’t last a second against him. However, that didn’t stop her when Zavros turned his back to walk over to the line of dead bodies to further examine them and brood a bit. None of us even tried to stop her or alert Zavros to what she was trying to do; we knew it would be an insult to Zavros to assume he didn’t know what she was doing.

 

She drew her sword and approached from behind in a motion to swing downwards and cut him in half. Her sword didn’t even get halfway through its movement before being stopped by Zavros’ fingertip. It didn’t even shift, her sword just stopped upon meeting his finger, and when she changed her stance to put pressure against him, putting her whole weight behind her blade, it still didn’t move, and they remained in this deadlock for but a few seconds before Zavros shifted his finger forwards and her blade shattered. Zavros lowered his arm, and the commander fell forwards. She tried to grab her dagger to stab him through the foot, and he merely shifted his foot before melting her dagger with fire. Zavros didn’t even look at her. When he finally turned around to look at her, he just looked bored, but not in a condescending way, more of a saddened way that told me he had dealt with this exact situation more times than even he can count and it was just routine for him.

 

The commander stood back up and began gathering magic around her, and it became the most primal form it could. Fire. Pure, consuming fire. And Zavros just stood there and took the attack without even a defense raised. This continued for a minute before the fire died down and it revealed Zavros stood there with one finger extended again and at the tip was a ball of magic, or it was a sphere with all the fire that the commander had thrown at him within it. The sphere was crushed in his hand and spread around the room in a wave, and took with it the bodies of the demons, leaving all of us and one singular demon body untouched. He then turned to Alxerczo and me and sighed before speaking.

“One of your commanders has attacked me, and I believe it is within my rights to request a punishment that I see fit.”

We both nodded once.

“Then I would request that once we get back to town, she be sent off with enough supplies to survive for a weeks time, not to return.”

Any surprise we would’ve had died upon seeing his face. He was regretting having to do what he did, even if that wasn’t much and he didn’t harm anyone in a physical way, he regretted having to resort to such measures and from seeing what he did to defend himself, we got an idea of how much he has to hold back his strength in every action he takes. We knew he could’ve easily killed her at any point with a mild application of strength or even a bit of lightning through the sword. The fact he chose not to shows how much he actually wants to save us and we are lucky to have him.

 

We all began to walk back through the crypt with the singular demon body that he spared and after everything realizing just how dangerous the situation we were in was. That if they had wished, the one who killed all the demons could’ve as easily gone into the town and killed all of us. And thus the walk back was quiet and without event.

 

Alxerczo’s POV

To be honest Zavros’ display of power and how he handled the commander was scary and unsettling. But I didn’t doubt that it was necessary for getting the point across that he was here to help. I knew that it would be a tough road ahead for us but I knew we could handle it.

 

Zavros’ POV

I don’t regret what I did. But I regret that I had to do it. The whole walk back to town was silent between all of us, and it was only when we got back to town that any of us said anything. When we went through the gates, we began to separate to where we needed to go before I brought us back to one group and we decided on what we were going to do. We agreed that we would have to say what we had seen in the crypt and we chose to get it over and done with and began to spread the word and told everyone to meet in the arena where this all started as it could hold all the people at one time. We said to meet at noon tomorrow, and we were sure to spread to word to everyone who could reliably spread it even further and eventually everyone will have heard about it and hopefully everyone would be there.

 

[Time passes]

 

It is now noon on the following morning, and we are in the middle of the arena explaining what we saw in the crypt without giving unnecessary detail or details that would scare the crowd too much. We warned people that this could’ve happened here in the city and to be vigilant and prepare yourselves. We then dismissed the people who don’t fight and then spoke to the guards and other people who are doing the fighting. We talked about how important it is to train and make sure they are united as a fighting force in the face of rising danger. While all of them showed bravery and determination at this, we lost a portion of them when we explained what had transpired between the so far unnamed commander and me in the crypt and what the punishment would be. There was a portion of the fighters that didn’t like what the sentence was or didn’t like me in the first place. Nothing came of it, but it could easily develop into something bad later. Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly have much say in the matter, so it was irrelevant and put to the side.

 

After that we sent the guards to guard and sent the fighters off to do what they were doing before while keeping some of the higher ranking officers with us for planning purposes.

We then returned to the command building and began the planning to look for the second level of the world and how we were going to deal with that.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you want to know why this chapter took so long to come out?  
> Simple explanation: I'm an uncaring, depressive, lazy, man.
> 
> Oh, You want more than that?
> 
> Ok, Long Explanation: I just kinda didn't do anything for a while and then I just wrote a bunch at random times when I could and eventually made a chapter worthy of posting. Then when it came to actually post the damn thing I remembered what I had to do to actually post it.
> 
> You see, I (wrongly) thought that the only way to post was using HTML codes which I gotta say are an absolute pain in the ass to use. Then about 15 minutes before I posted this chapter I found the "Rich Text" button next to the "HTML" button in the Add Chapter menu. 
> 
> I then proceeded to run my head into a wall a couple thousand times until I could no longer feel the pain and thus I will keep posting chapters here to the Archive.
> 
> Before finding that Rich Text button, I was about post an update chapter telling all of you to go to my fanfiction.net account where I would be posting all future chapters. I was unsure the rules would even allow me to do that but that's what I would've done.
> 
> Also, you know, Anime, and TV, and Fanfiction. So much Fanfiction.
> 
> As always, enjoy my stories, live your lives and remember that a man chooses, a slave obeys because the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. After all, we're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.


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